Honored to Be Named a Fellow of The OR Society

The official good news arrived a few weeks ago and, this past week, I received the certificate.

I am humbled and thrilled to have been named a Fellow of the Operational Research (OR) Society,  which is based in the United Kingdom.

It has been quite an amazing year, thanks to both The OR Society and to another professional society that I am a member (long-time one) of - that of INFORMS.

On December 5, 2024, I delivered the Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society in London, thanks to The OR Society, and blogged about the magical experience here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

Below is a collage of photos to capture this truly memorable experience:

An article that I wrote about my  Blackett Lecture was published (and is feely accessible this year) in The OR Society flagship journal The Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706

And, just this past week, on the day before Thanksgiving, an article that I wrote with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Samirasadat Samadi, on tariffs, supply chain networks, and labor was published in JORS: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2592758

I am so grateful to outstanding professional societies for providing us with communities and support.

Thank you to The Or Society Fellows Committee, its Board, and to those who wrote letters of support for me!

Many thanks also to INFORMS for recognizing my work (and thanks to my students and collaborators) with the 2025 President's Award: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

Our work continues.

Making an Impact - All Set with 3 Talks for the EURO Conference in Leeds, UK!

In a few days, I head to the UK. I am very excited about the EURO conference at the University of Leeds https://euro2025leeds.uk/, at which I will have 3 invited presentations. My talks are all prepared. This conference marks 50 years of the professional society of EURO, so it will be a very celebratory conference.

The Making an Impact stream, which is the practitioners' stream at the EURO conferences, is always a favorite of mine. I'm thrilled that, at this conference, I'll present on: Tariffs, Trade, and OR: Impacts on Producers, Consumers, and Labor in the Making an Impact: 'OR in Action Lightning Talks' session. Thanks to Ruth Kaufman for organizing this session, which will be the first one of the conference. I last saw Ruth at my Blackett Lecture, which I delivered at The Royal Society in London on December 5, 2024. 

And, in the session immediately following, I'll deliver the presentation, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," which is based on a paper I co-authored with my Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst PhD student Ismael M. Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of Odesa. The paper was recently published in the International Journal of Operational Research: https://lnkd.in/ewmXR8kU. 

Many thanks also to Professors Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber and Roberto Rossi for inviting me to speak in the session: Celebrating 50 Years of EURO on "Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years." In that presentation slide deck I have many photos of conferees at EURO conferences in Reykjavik, Poznan, Dublin, and other locations.  I am very much looking forward to the outstanding scientific presentations and social gatherings and to building new memories.

Thrilled that My Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," is Now Published and Free Access!

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to The Operational Research Society for publishing my  Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," in its flagship journal, the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS),  and for making it free to access through 2025! JORS recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and is the oldest journal in Operational Research (OR).

The full paper can be downloaded from the link:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706?src=exp-la#d1e107

For a post on the incredible experience of delivering the Blackett Lecture on December 5, 2024 at The Royal Society in London, England, click here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

I have enjoyed, over the years, reading other Blackett Lecture papers and have even used several of them in my classes. Deeply honored to have been selected as a Blackett Lecturer and to be "in the company" of such former Blackett Lecturers as: Arnold Barnett, Luc Van Wassenhove, and William Cooper, who has since passed away. 

Three Papers Accepted in One Week!

My Mother always said that "good news comes in threes" and this week we certainly had some much appreciated good news.

My paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," which is based on the Blackett Lecture that I delivered at The Royal Society in London, England on December 5, 2024, thanks to The Operational Research Society, was accepted for publication in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. And, incredibly, I received the galleys of the paper yesterday (a Saturday) and they were in great shape. Below is the first page.

And, since the Blackett Lecture experience was so special I include a collage below made of photos from the event, with deep gratitude for all that took part.

Many thanks also to The Operational Research Society for posting my Blackett Lecture online on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LsIEsi-m0

Also, we heard from the International Transactions in Operational Research that the paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," that I co-authored with my PhD student Ismael Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy in Ukraine, was accepted for publication. We hope to receive the galleys soon. Professor Kormych is a Virtual Scholar in our terrific UMass Amherst - Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) partnership. He was in the first cohort and is also in the second cohort. You can read more about the Virtual Scholars and their Faculty Hosts at the Isenberg School of Management here: https://www.umass.edu/global-affairs/news/kyiv-school-economics-and-university-massachusetts-amherst-launch-second-round-virtual-scholar

We heard the good news shortly after Ismael Pour presented the paper in the doctoral seminar in Management Science that I am teaching this semester. We took the nice photo below with him and Yongdong Chen and Samira Samadi (both also PhD students in the seminar) after Ismael's presentation.

Ismael will present this paper at the POMS Conference in Atlanta next month.

Also, Samira (full first name is Samirasadat) and I got the paper, "Multicommodity Trade, Tariffs, and Rerouting," accepted in a very special volume: Convex and Variational Analysis with Applications: In Honor of Terry Rockafellar’s 90th Birthday. Panos M. Pardalos and Themistocles M. Rassias, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. This is a very interesting and timely paper, given the trade wars that are happening now in real time. It discusses the evasion of tariffs and impacts through rerouting, with minimum processing, except for repackaging/relabeling in other countries.

We are grateful to the Editors and reviewers of our papers.

An Incredible Blackett Lecture Experience at the Royal Society in London

We returned yesterday from London, in time for me to teach my last Transportation and Logistics class of the Fall 2024 semester this morning.

It was a whirlwind week. My husband and I flew from Boston Logan on December 3 (after I taught my class), and, after a few hours of sleep, we had the pleasure of taking part in an Isenberg School get together hosted by my former PhD student, Dr. Stavros Siokos, the co-founder of Astarte Capital. It was a lovely event with Dean Anne P. Massey taking part as well as Senior Associate Dean Bill Brown, plus several Isenberg School development folks, alums and friends.

And, on December 5, it was time for my Blackett Lecture and the annual awards given out by The Operational Research (OR) Society of the United Kingdom. 

The venue was The Royal Society. This society is the oldest scientific society, dating back to 1660. The event was lovely - beautifully organized with the awards taking place first, followed by my one hour Blackett Lecture, a cocktail hour, and then a delicious dinner. The OR Society will be posting a video of my lecture on its youtube channel soon as well as professional photographs on its Flickr.

I was incredibly honored to have the opportunity to deliver my Blackett Lecture, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," at the beautiful venue and to an audience of amazing colleagues, academics and practitioners, as well as friends and invited guests. I would like to acknowledge the President of The OR Society Gilbert Owusu for the warm introduction and for so expertly handling the Q&A, and Gavin Blackett, Carol McLaughlin, Sarah Davies, and Caitlin Griffin of  The OR Society for the hospitality. Special thanks to Graham Rand, Edmund Burke, and Robert Fildes for the conversations and welcome. It's not every day that one gets to be in a photograph next to an oil painting of the Nobel laureate and Founder of OR in the UK - Patrick Blackett! 

It was an honor to have the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst Dean Anne P. Massey and Senior Associate Dean William Brown in attendance as well as Diane Isenberg and University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD alumnus Stavros Siokos. Recognizing so many in the audience because of professional interactions over the years, made for a very enjoyable experience - thank you all! The slide deck of my presentation has been posted: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/BlackettLecture-Nagurney-2024.pdf

Some additional background on becoming the 2024 Blackett Lecturer can be found here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/11/deeply-honored-to-have-been-selected-to.html

Congratulations to all the award recipients recognized at this very memorable event. The impact of our great discipline is humbling and inspiring. Working together we can continue to make positive change. 

Deeply Honored to Have Been Selected to Deliver the 2024 Blackett Lecture at the Royal Society in London

You probably remember the day that you received some wonderful news and also the day that you received sad news.

This post is about the former.

I was at a conference in Kalamata, Greece in honor of the 70th birthday of Panos M. Pardalos last summer when the great news arrived. I had been selected by The Operational Research (OR) Society to deliver the 2024 Blackett Lecture at the Royal Society in London. Honestly, as I was reading the letter, the tears started to flow since I was so touched that my hard work was being recognized. 

Patrick Blackett, after whom the lecture is named, was the founder of  OR in the United Kingdom. In the US, we, typically, say "Operations Research." He was also awarded a Nobel Prize in physics.

The abstract of my lecture as well as a link to registration can be found here.

The letter from The OR Society, signed by the Executive Director Seb Hargreaves and by the President of The OR Society, Gilbert Owusu, is below.

I have been enjoying preparing my lecture, which will give a panoramic view of OR and policies from tolls for congested urban transportation networks to tariffs and quotas for agricultural supply chain networks. I will be bringing in a lot of personal experiences as well.

I am thrilled that there will even be guests from New England coming.