The Memorial Tribute to the Great Hani Mahmassani at INFORMS

All those who had the pleasure of knowing Hani Mahmassani, who passed away on July 15, 2025 at the age of 69, will never forget him. He has left us with an incredible void, but lucky are we who were his friends, and/or his students,  and/or colleagues, or collaborators.

Many thanks to Yue Wang of the University of Arizona, who prepared this poster notice for the  Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society memorial tribute event in honor of Hani Mahmassani that took place last week at the INFORMS Conference in Atlanta.

The session began with a Zoom presentation by Roberto Roberti of Italy, this year's recipient of the Stella Dafermos Mid-Career Award, and then it was time for our panel, which was chaired by Karen Smilowitz of Northwestern University, a colleague of Hani's.

At the beginning, we gathered for a photo with Pat Mokhtarian, of Georgia Tech, who joined us. Pat was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, as Hani had been earlier.

Srinivas Peeta of Georgia Tech had prepared the nice collage poster of photos that some of us had also contributed to.

The talks were incredibly touching with Srinivas Peeta speaking about Hani, as his PhD advisor, and colleague, with numerous photos over the years of many luminaries in transportation science. He emphasized what a great researcher Hani was and also an outstanding organizer, integrator, and mentor. 

In my presentation, which is available here:  https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/Hani-Tribute-INFORMS-Nagurney.pdf, I included photos taken over many years of activities, including service ones, I had engaged in with Hani. So many memories came flooding back and I can hear his voice. Hani always inspired us to reach higher and to do more. He stretched us professionally and personally with his many kindnesses and support.

Marco Nie, a colleague of Hani's at Northwestern, had used ChatGPT for his presentation slides, and it was fascinating to see what was picked up by AI in terms of the contributions of Hani's research to transportation science, such as his work on bounded rationality and traffic assignment, and dynamic traffic network equilibrium.

Mike Hyland of UC Irvine, and a former PhD student of Hani's, spoke from the heart about how it was to work with Hani, who only slept a few hours a night. Hani was always willing to listen and to push the frontiers of transportation research and practice. He supervised over 75 PhD theses. 

We then took the group photo below. Thanks to all who were able to join us for this touching memorial session in honor of Hani Mahmassani. 

Thank you, Hani, for your friendship, scholarship, leadership, and for being a visionary.

For the In Memoriam, co-authored by Karen Smilowitz and Marco Nie, and published in the journal Transportation Science, see here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/trsc.2025.memorial.v59.n6

The In Memoriam ends as follows: "In 1997, Hani wrote a tribute to Robert Herman in Transportation Science. He closed his tribute with the following words that ring so true to us as we remember Hani: “I will miss him, and so will many others, but will always know that I am a richer person for having known him.”"

Slide Decks of Our Talks at INFORMS in Atlanta Are Now Posted on Topics from War Risk Insurance to Tariffs and Rerouting to Remembering the Great Hani Mahmassani

My immediate research group had five presentations at the recent INFORMS Conference, which took place in Atlanta, October 26-29, 2025.

I am delighted that the slide decks of all the above presentations have now been posted on the Virtual Center for Supernetworks website: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals.html.

Below is a photo of the speakers and the organizers (thanks to Himadri Sen Gupta and Andrés González for the invitation) of the Resilient Networks session in which Ismael Pour, my PhD student, presented our paper on integrated crop and cargo war risk insurance with applications to Ukraine. This paper we co-authored with Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy and it was published in the International Transactions in Operational Research and is available free access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R

My PhD student, Samira Samadi, presented two papers (since I had to speak on a panel memorializing Hani Mahmassani, who passed away on July 15, 2025).

Samira's first paper presentation, which was on fresh produce quality deterioration under transportation congestion and disruptions, was on work we did with Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond. Her second paper, which we co-authored, was on tariffs and rerouting, and is in press in a volume in honor of Terry Rockafellar's 90th birthday: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032078599.

Dana Hassani delivered a paper of ours in the 8AM session on the last day of the conference. The paper, with Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), was published in an edited Dynamics of Disasters volume by Springer last December: https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/quantification-of-international-trade-network-performance-under-/50390576

I will blog about the panel in honor of Hani Mahmassani in a separate post but below I share a photo of the entire group that took part. Thanks to Karen Smilowitz and to the Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society of INFORMS for allowing us to memorialize Hani in a session originally scheduled for the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, who could not make it (Cynthia Barnhart of MIT was recognized this year). Hani was an earlier recipient of this award.

 

Terrific INFORMS Magazine Editorial Advisory Board (MEAB) Meeting in Atlanta

Many thanks to INFORMS for the extraordinary conference in Atlanta, October 26-29, 2025! The conferees returned inspired and with renewed energy. It was a conference that set new high standards and was so enjoyable with about 7,000 conferees from around the globe.

In addition to the talks, business meetings, social networking events, and award ceremonies, this Annual Meeting serves as the venue for various face to face board meetings.

I have been chairing the INFORMS Magazine Editorial Advisory Board (MEAB) for several years now and very much enjoy working with fellow Board Members and INFORMS staff. The MEAB oversees such excellent publications as ORMS Today, Analytics Magazine, and also ORMS Tomorrow.

I'd like to thank INFORMS Editor Kara Tucker and Mary Leszczynski, Director of Marketing at INFORMS, and Board Members: James Cochran of the University of Alabama, Trilce Encarnacion of the University of Missouri–St. Louis, Lavanya Marla of the University of Illinois, Patricia Neri of Underwriters Laboratories, Thiago Serra of the University of Iowa, Anand Subramanian of the Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Jun Zhuang of the University of Buffalo, and our newest member Carlos A. Zetina of FICO Express for a very productive, engaging meeting this past Monday morning at 8AM. Jun Zhuang took the below expert selfie of us. It is such a pleasure to serve as the Chair of MEAB. Many thanks also to Tinglong Dai of Johns Hopkins University, who was triple booked and could not join us but followed up with a warm message.

Carlos even brought delicious chocolates from Montreal for us! 

More info on MEAB and its members: https://pubsonline.informs.org/magazine/orms-today/resources. I thank both Gokce Esenduran of Purdue University and Emily McIntosh of  Ernst & Young for their service. Their terms have now expired. 

Link to issues of ORMS Today: https://pubsonline.informs.org/magazine/orms-today

Many thanks to all the contributors to these very engaging, informative professional publications!

Congratulations to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter!

The INFORMS Conference in Atlanta, which took place October 26-29, 2025, was fantastic! There were about 7,000 conferees, who enjoyed the scientific presentations plus keynotes and plenaries, many social networking events, tutorials, business meetings, and also award ceremonies. It was wonderful to have participants who are students, academics, and practitioners from around the globe!

On Monday evening of the conference, the INFORMS Chapter Awards event took place. As the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since 2004 (when the Chapter was founded), I was delighted to see the Chapter recognized with the Cum Laude Award for its activities.

The evening began with welcoming remarks from Elena Gerstmann, the Executive Director of INFORMS, and Mark E. Lewis, the President-Elect of INFORMS.

Then we had the pleasure of hearing from Vinod Cheriyan, the Chapter Representative to the Subdivisions Council of  INFORMS, and listening to the dynamic keynote by Sina Ansari.

The students were thrilled to receive the award plaque and we took a group photo.

This Student Chapter is an outstanding collaboration between PhD students in Operations Management at the Isenberg School of Management and Industrial Engineering PhD students at UMass Amherst. All who are interested in Operations Research and Analytics are welcome to join. Last year's Chapter President was Ismael Pour and this year's Chapter President is Samira Samadi.

For more information about the Chapters, its Officers, and activities, please visit the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/

It was wonderful to have even a former member, now a Professor, Dr. Heng Chen of Kansas State University, join us.

Congratulations to the students! We plan on holding a celebration on campus soon.

Deeply Honored to Receive the INFORMS President's Award

On the evening of October 26, 2025, the lovely INFORMS Awards Ceremony took place at its Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

I was deeply honored and humbled to be recognized with the INFORMS President's Award: 

I received the good news via a phone call from the 2025 INFORMS President David Hunt, and did not share the news publicly until INFORMS issued the press release below in October.

https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

The award ceremony was elegant and what made it extra special for me was to have, in the audience,  my PhD students (present and former ones), colleagues, friends, INFORMS staff, and also my husband. I am grateful to David Hunt and to Past Presidents Laura Albert and Julie Swan (both of whom served on the committee) for this very meaningful honor. I appreciate the leadership of the INFORMS Executive Director Elena Gerstmann. Pelin Pekgun was wonderful in making many warm announcements.

Below, I share a photo of the award plaque, which my husband kindly carried back to Amherst yesterday, and other photos. Many thanks to former President's Award recipient, Pinar Keskinocak, for sending me the photo of the two of us!

And INFORMS, so efficiently, put up the video recording of my award acceptance speech on its YouTube channel, which is very thoughtful and kind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=-2GAGCgnaGE I had had a rehearsal for my speech earlier that Sunday, which speaks to the professionalism of INFORMS!

Thank you, David Hunt, and thank you, INFORMS, for the support, the leadership, and also for the incredible community that is INFORMS! Let's continue to devote our efforts so that everyone can realize their full potential.

Our Paper is Published in the Latest Issue of the Ukrainian Analytical Digest Focused On: Recovery, Resilience, and Resources

This past week our paper, "Rebuilding the Crossroads of Ukraine: Bridging the Gap Between Damage, Recovery and European Aspirations," co-authored by Oleh Nivievskyi and Dmytro Goriunov of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) and me, was published in the latest edition of the Ukrainian Analytical Digest. The issue is focused on: Recovery, Resilience, and Resources.

It is especially thrilling that our paper is the lead article in the issue. The issue is an excellent one and we acknowledge the assistance and guidance of its Editor, Eduard Klein, throughout the reviewing process.

The full issue is available for free and can be accessed here: https://css.ethz.ch/publikationen/uad/details.html?id=/n/o/1/4/no_14_recovery_resilience_and_resourcesn

And, just over a month ago, we had the pleasure of hosting Oleh Nivievskyi in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series and he spoke on our paper!

Working with Ukrainian colleagues has been a bright light in Russia's horrific, illegal war on Ukraine, which continues. To-date, we have had the honor of collaborating (and publishing) with colleagues at KSE, at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, and at the Odesa Law Academy. Their courage and dedication to their research as well as hard work in sustaining higher education during wartime is incredibly inspiring. Such collaborations are an outgrowth of the outstanding global partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE established through a series of MOUs shortly after the full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022.  We acknowledge the great work of the UMass Amherst Office of Global Partnerships and the Senior Vice Provost for Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi.

Proud to Have Had Our Work Presented at the Disaster Risk Reduction Conference in Kyoto, Japan

Last week, my collaborator, Professor Myroslava Kushnir of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, presented our paper, "Social Network Analysis of Civilian Support Networks for the Ukrainian Military," at the The 10th IFIP WG5.15 Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (itdrr) in Kyoto, Japan: https://lnkd.in/eAu3_qyN. 

The paper will be published in the conference proceedings. Myroslava was a Virtual Scholar in the outstanding global partnership between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE),  thanks to the UMass Amherst Office of Global Affairs and the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst.  I have been working with Myroslava for over two years now and it has been a pleasure to collaborate with her.

Myroslava, in the above photo, is standing with Professor Renata Konrad of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), who presented a poster at this conference. Our collaboration with Professor Konrad produced a paper that was published in the ISCRAM, Münster, Germany, 2024 Proceedings: https://lnkd.in/eFkZ94nB

Myroslava very much enjoyed the conference as well as being in Japan. I have been to both Tokyo and Yokahama for conferences and had extraordinary experiences there and wonderful memories.

Myroslava returned safely back to the Ukrainian Catholic University, where she teaches. I would have loved to have gone to this conference in Kyoto but, with my teaching schedule and upcoming INFORMS conference in Atlanta (next week), I could not make it. I am very proud and happy that she went, after traveling a great distance,  and presented our paper. Thanks also to the reviewers of our paper for their helpful comments and suggestions!