Faces at INFORMS Conference in Buenos Aires

Today was the first day that I could catch my breath since arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina last Saturday to attend the ALIO-INFORMS conference. The conference was a whirlwind experience with about 1,000 conferees in attendance and just over 100 from the US. Giving a talk, taking part in a panel on international collaborations, plus attending an editorial board meeting, and giving a tutorial on Fragile Networks, still left me some time to attend both plenary talks and keynote talks as well as another tutorial (besides my own).

What a colleague said to me yesterday, I agree with -- in addition to the scientific exchanges that take place at an international conference, what makes such events so special is the people that you meet from colleagues from around the world that you get to see again and to reconnect with to new friends that are made.

Above are some photos taken at some of the above conference events that I mentioned earlier.

More photos and reflections can be found in several of my earlier blogposts.

The atmosphere in Buenos Aires, with the beautiful pale blue sky and the fascinating architecture and boulevards, plus the fantastic food and elegant people (and numerous dogs and dogwalkers), all make for a truly unique and special conference venue.

First 48 Hours in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina after about 17 hours of travel. It is Fall here but the weather is perfect with sunny skies and temps in the 60s.

The ALIO INFORMS conference has begun and I have met conferees from around the globe.

Above are some snapshots taken in Buenos Aires during my first 48 hours here.

The elegance of the city and its charms are apparent as is the warmth of the people here. Knowing Spanish is a clear advantage and it is great to have an opportunity to speak this language.

Operations Research Tutorials at ALIO-INFORMS Conference

There is a wealth of tutorials at the very soon to take place ALIO-INFORMS Conference, as well as exciting plenary talks and keynote speeches. The venue is Buenos Aires, Argentina, which has been called the "Paris of the South."

The topics of the tutorials and plenary and keynote speeches are varied and exciting and include a wide spectrum: from optimization in sports to portfolio management, OR education, revenue management, dynamic games, humanitarian operations, telecommunications applications, cliques in graphs, among others. The full list can be read here.

Mike Trick has a blog post that he is also off to the conference and has been working on his tutorial.

I am sure that this conference will be covered well by the bloggers in attendance and plan on posting from Buenos Aires!

The tutorial that I will be giving is on Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age and I have made the slides available (along with those for a presentation and for the International Collaborations panel that I will be on). An invited paper, based on this tutorial, and in press in the journal, International Transactions in Operational Research, joint with my co-author of the Fragile Networks book, can be downloaded (in pdf format).

Boston, Cambridge, and Upcoming Conference in Buenos Aires

I was in Boston and Cambridge this past week where the roads and streets were clear of snow, unlike the Washington DC area, which is being pummeled by a huge snowstorm that has grounded travel to a halt.

Having spent a year as a Science Fellow at Harvard in 2005-2006 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, I like to go back fairly regularly. Cambridge and Boston are two magnificent locations in my state of Massachusetts and I get my muse in those places (among others).

While in Cambridge, I met the Executive Director of the Latin America Research Center of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University, who is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Buenos Aires is the venue for the ALIO-INFORMS Conference that is taking place in early June, 2010. At the conference, I will be giving a tutorial, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age. Additional tutorial topics and plenary lectures can be found here. The New York Times had a recent article on Buenos Aires which highly recommended it as a fascinating destination.

At the ALIO-INFORMS conference, which will bring operations researchers and management scientists from around the globe to discuss their latest research, I will also be taking part in a panel on International Collaborations, a topic that I have been writing about on this blog recently. The panel is organized by WORMS, Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences, a fora of my professional society INFORMS. The convener of this panel is Dr. Sadan Kulturel, a Professor at Penn State Berks. Joining me on the panel will be: Drs. M. Gulnara Baldoquin, Karla Hoffman, and Lorena Predanas. The panel will focus on different means of international collaborations such as funded projects, international research and teaching projects, sabbaticals, etc. The panelists will discuss their unique perspectives on issues affecting the success of women in academic positions in the US and in Latin American countries. I am very much looking forward to being on this panel, giving my tutorial, and to going to the ALIO-INFORMS conference.

Above I share with you some photos of the intellectual capitals of the universe (Boston and Cambridge) taken this past week (including photos of Harvard Yard and Radcliffe Yard, with a recent sculpture, and where I had my office as a Science Fellow). I could not resist also including a photo of the bronze sculptures of the ducks made famous in the book, Make Way for Ducklings, on the Boston Common. Note the absence of snow although it is February!