Green Spaces At and Near Harvard University

It's been a terrific week and I am enjoying being back at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University very much. Byerly Hall is where the Fellows, including the Summer Fellows, have their offices, and my office overlooks a fountain and a garden.

Since I am a tree hugger and it is now June it is wonderful to discover and to enjoy special places in Cambridge and Boston that are green! I continue to do research on sustainability and have also published on the design of sustainable supply chains for sustainable cities.

Besides the Cambridge Common, featured below,

I find the Harvard Business School, with its lovely collection of buildings, surrounded by beautiful landscaping and flowers a true gem.

A favorite discovery of mine, while taking a walk on Brattle Street, is the Mount Auburn Cemetery, which is a national landmark, and not only the burial place of numerous historical figures, but also an expanse of lovely gardens, fountains, and architecture. I saw a turkey, a bunny, and multiple chipmunks and was serenaded by birds during a walk there last week.

Another favorite green space is the public garden in Boston, which is an absolute delight.

And, after explorations and soaking in the beauty of green spaces as well as the fragrant air, it is always terrific to come back to Radcliffe where the painting below hangs outside my office.

Green spaces add so much to the quality of life in cities.

Wonderful Conversation with Robin Chase, Cofounder of Zipcar, Thanks to the Isenberg School

The Isenberg School of Management started this year a great speaker series, which takes place at the UMass Club in downtown Boston.

Last Fall, the inaugural lecture was given by Steve Wozniak, the cofounder of Apple, and I blogged after this event.

This evening, the speaker was Robin Chase, an entrepreneur and cofounder of Zipcar, who, as she said, has become a real transportation wonk. Given that I teach a course on Transportation and Logistics and have also done a lot of research in this field, it was a fantastic opportunity to hear from her.

She was introduced by our Associate Dean, Professor Tom Moliterno, and Asma Khalid from Boston's NPR station, WBUR,  was the interviewer.

Robin has a degree from Wellesley College and an MBA from Stanford.

She took us back to 2000, when she cofounded Zipcar, and knew very soon that it would be very successful, so her husband left his day job and became a full-time parent for their three children, ages 6, 9, and 12 then.

Zipcar, according to her, was the third consumer product with wireless.

She emphasized the importance of origins and destinations  for trips as well as the types of different trips that people take in cars. She believes that Uber and Lyft could not have raised a penny if we didn't have Zipcar. Although there may be some cannibalization, Zipcar users use this service for different trips than those who utilize Uber and Lyft. She called them taxis and finds them to be complementary to Zipcar.

She also talked about Buzzcar, which she founded and which has been successful in France. It is a peer to peer car sharing service. She tried to get insurance for it in the US without any success and after 5 years gave up but managed to secure insurance in France within a year. I appreciated very much that she advised that one should not break rules on health and safety as a company. Four years ago she co-founded Venium, which provides low cost, reliable connectivity in vehicles and uses radio technology. She believes that Venium will be bigger than Zipcar.

Some of the conversation focused on whether  there is a place for car ownership in the US in the future. She believes that private cars will be excluded in dense cities in the US by 2030 and that this will happen in Europe and parts of Asia much sooner. She envisions the increase in land as providing space for bicycles, more greenspace, more low income housing, and cleaner air as well. Why spend $9K per year for a car if transport can cost you only $3K.

I liked her statement that "people will follow the economics."

She was very honest and sincere and spoke of the failure of her startup Goloco, which received $2 million in funding in 2009 and then she had to give back half of the funding two years later. People in the US just did not like sharing rides. She also emphasized the importance of a critical mass and mentioned that BlaBlaCar has been successful.

She believes that we will have use of self-driving cars by 2020-2021 because of automation in the car sector. Of course, there will be impact on truck drivers and bus drivers as well as insurance companies. With 35,000 people dying in traffic accidents last year in the US autonomous vehicles can improve safety.

She also noted that the single biggest barrier to alleviating poverty is access to quality transportation Clearly, car ownership of the future will differ for those residing in dense urban areas and those living in suburbia.

We are now in a platform economy and there is a political opportunity to do better than we have done in the past.

The Q&A were excellent an I especially appreciate the question about cybersecurity and autonomous vehicles since we have published several papers on cybersecurity and cybersecurity investments and network vulnerability.

The Isenberg School livestreamed this event, which had not been done for the Wozniak evening.

Many thanks to Robin Chase for a fascinating conversation and to Asma Khalid for keeping the conversation flowing so well.

A Fabulous Conversation with Steve Wozniak - Co-Founder of Apple

Yesterday, after a three and a half hour journey (it was the Friday before the Columbus Day long weekend), from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, via the Mass Turnpike (a journey that should take no more than 2 hours), we arrived at The UMass Club in downtown Boston.

We were driven by a UMass student, Jenna, on a courtesy van provided by the Isenberg School to attend an event with Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. The event was an inaugural lecture in a new series, part of the Isenberg School's #Driven campaign.

The van ride was long but what made it fun was being with colleagues such as my department chair, Iqbal Agha, the chair of the Finance department, Sanjay Nawalkha, and our new clinical professor, Charlie Johnson, who was hired for our entrepreneurship program, and has been a Boston lawyer for over 30 years. Also with us was our wonderful Isenberg School Communications Director, Lou Wigdor.

The faculty on the van had been invited to be table facilitators with the evening program consisting of a 60 minute conversation with Steve Wozniak, moderated by the fabulous Tom Ashbrook, the host of NPR's, On Point, followed by a dinner. Other faculty facilitators included the chair of the Marketing Department, the one and only Bruce Weinberg, and my colleague, Alan Robinson.

Attendance was great at this event, and several remarked to me that they heard of it on NPR a few days ago and decided to come. The view of Boston from The UMass Club, which is on the 32nd floor, was stunning. I saw several alums, including Vinnie Daboul!

Sitting with me at the table were several GE employees, an employee of Nuance Communications, of the Markley Group, and  Mendix, as well as an Operations and Information Management (OIM) undergraduate student who had volunteered to help out. We talked about our jobs, Wozniak, high tech, and had a great time.

It was fabulous to see the UMass President, Marty Meehan, there and I told him how one of my former students shared with me that, when he turned 21, and was then a student at UMass Lowell, President Meehan took him out to celebrate. The student will never forget this.

While nibbling on some canapes the conversation began and the energy of Wozniak was incredible. I had caught up with his travels by checking out his Twitter account and he had come in from London just the day before and the week before he had spoken in Canada. He lives in California.

He spoke on the founding of Apple, his childhood, during which he loved ham radios (my husband is a ham radio operator so I very much appreciated this) and also electronics. I am sure that many of you have read both the book on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and Wozniak's book iWoz. But it was extra special to see him in person and also to meet with him afterwards with a group asking for autographs. He, like Jobs, was a prankster, and usually got away with his pranks, since he did not advertise them.  He loved soldering and constructing computers so as to minimize resources, typically, computer chips. He clearly has a mindset of an Operations Researcher! He recalled fondly his time with the Homebrew Computer Club and thought that he would spend his entire life as an engineer at HP and could design computers in the off hours. His design of the Apple I and Apple II computers revolutionized personal computers and the computer industry.

He emphasized that happiness is important and his integrity was vivid throughout his presentation/conversation.  He said that he builds computers since he was inspired by social causes. Steve Jobs was the one with the business mind and, together, originally they had to hustle for the computer parts that they needed. He did mention that the Lisa and Apple III computers were not successful but he was not involved in their designs.

Interestingly, although the general public believes he is no longer with Apple, Wozniak actually still gets a paycheck from Apple. Apple II provided the company with revenues for 10 years. He also spoke about gaming and the importance of color and how the fact that Visicalc could run on an Apple computer very much helped in sales. People wanted computer solutions. Steve Jobs wanted computers to get easier and easier to use. He was not technical, according to Wozniak.

He said that in order to lead you have to be willing to take risks. Ashbrook asked him about the future of technology and Wozniak emphasized that we had earlier the advantage of Moore's Law. As for Artificial Intelligence, the question is how can it improve the world? 

He was proud that he eventually received his college degree from UC Berkeley but since he was already very well-known at that time, it is "Rocky" Raccoon Clark that appears ob his diploma.

He still has the first Apple I computer that he ever made.

Wozniak noted that we should be partners with computers.

He told us it is about "food, fun, and friends," and that his equation for happiness is: smiles minus frowns. He also mentioned that his wife is from Kansas.

We had time but only for a few questions and I enjoyed his insights on autonomous vehicles. 

It was a fantastic evening and we made it back to the Isenberg School in less than 2 hours. Joining us on the van back was Susan Boyer. The conversations were fabulous and the evening is one we will long remember.

Many thanks to Steve Wozniak  and to Tom Ashbrook as well as to the Isenberg Dean, Dr. Mark Fuller, and to Assistant Dean Chris Pilsner for organizing and making possible this great inaugural lecture! Also thanks to Associate Dean Tom Moliterno for inviting me to be a table facilitator at this great inaugural lecture.

From Supply Chain Optimization Summit in Seattle to ACEC in Boston to Big Book Launch in Chicago - What an October!

The new academic year is in full swing and it is a very special time of the year in New England with the fall foliage in its full splendor.

This month of October is jam-packed with so many exciting events that I am taking part in and am very much looking forward to.

Tomorrow (I turned down a trip to France), I will be teleconferencing in for a habilitation defense in France. I am on the candidate's habilitation committee, which required the reading of a professional dissertation, his book, and several papers of his. A habilitation is even higher than a PhD and several countries expect this achievement before one can supervise doctoral students and proceed higher on the academic ladder.

Thursday, the Isenberg School is hosting Marc Schneider, the CEO of the fashion house Kenneth Cole Productions. Marc is an Isenberg School alum and will be speaking to my Logistics and Transportation class. On Friday, my Operations and Management Department will be having its Advisory Board meeting and speed mentoring event. That afternoon I will also be taking part in a networking event organized by the Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI) at UMass Amherst that I am an affiliate of.

This weekend, I will be flying to Seattle, as an invited faculty participant of the First Amazon Supply Chain Optimization Summit. There will be about 30 faculty taking part in this 2-day summit from across the globe and we are even getting a tour of the fulfillment center, complete with Kiva robots.  The list of invited participants contains many well-known INFORMS members so it will be a nice small-scale reunion before our INFORMS conference in Philly at the end of the month.

Upon my return, I will teach my Logistics and Transportation class and then will be heading to Boston for the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) conference.  I am an invited speaker and will give the presentation, "The Application of Supernetworks to Critical Infrastructure from Transportation to Electric Power." This conference overlaps, in part, with the Head of the Charles regatta, for all the rowing fans out there!  Since my college room-mate at Brown University  was on the women's crew team and now my daughter is President of her college crew  and also the cox for two men's boats, I will have to check out the regatta. (And there is a chance that my daughter may be coxing an alum boat from her college).

The following week, I am flying to Chicago, where I have the great pleasure and honor of being one of three panelists at the big book launch of the Boyce and Williams book, which is a scholarly masterpiece: "Forecasting Urban Travel," published by Edward Elgar. This will be a truly celebratory event.

And the week afterwards,  colleagues, students, and I will be off to the INFORMS conference in Philadelphia.

Never a dull moment or day in academia!

Speaking on Supernetworks and Critical Infrastructure at ACEC Meeting in Boston

I received an email  message from Beth Larkin, who is a Vice President at the HNTB Corporation in Boston, last March. She is a Professional Engineer and is also a UMass Amherst engineering alumna. She is a colleague of Ted Zoli's, who is the Chief Engineer at HNTB and is a MacArthur Foundation genius grant recipient. Beth had reached out to him to get a recommendation as to who may be a good speaker on Big Data and transportation in the near future for the ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) Boston Conference and he recommended me - what an honor.

ACEC is an organization that represents the business interests of  the engineering consulting industry.

Beth also wrote in her message to me that this industry is: An industry that desperately could benefit from hearing from women thought leaders.  Beth is an ACEC/MA Past President and part of a group of women who are trying to get more of the sessions to include women both as presenters / panelists and moderators.  

The topic that she was hoping that I could speak on was: “The Application of Supernetworks to Critical Infrastructure from Transportation to Electric Power Networks.” 

Such an invitation was impossible to refuse and I am delighted to be speaking at the ACEC Fall conference, which takes place in beautiful Boston, October 14-17, 2015.

I will be speaking on Friday afternoon, October 16, 2015, in an Educational Session.   

My presentation is ready and it had to be emailed to ACEC in early September since copies will be distributed to the audience. The expected attendance is 800 people with not all going to each session, of course. It is great to be representing the Isenberg School of Management and UMass Amherst in this way.

The conference brochure is here. 

The keynote speakers are: Doris Kearns Goodwin, who will speak on "Leadership Lessons from the White House," and Dr. Robert Ballard, the discoverer of the Titanic. 

Looking forward to a fabulous conference and so glad to have an opportunity to speak on our supernetwork and critical infrastructure research. 

An added bonus is that the Fragile Networks book that I wrote with Dr. Qiang will also be displayedat the conference.

Truly Impressive Isenberg Business Ledership Award Event in Boston

I returned from my wonderful stint as a Visiting Professor in Sweden specifically for the Isenberg Business Leadership Awards event, which took place in Boston last evening.

It was a gala affair with over 330 of our great alums, faculty, administrators, staff, students, guests, and honorees in attendance. The event took place at the Boston Colonnade hotel and it was spectacular!

We had two UMass vans waiting for those who elected to travel this way by the Isenberg School and it was quite the road trip. I was the only female in a van with two of my finance colleagues (Professors Nelson Lacey and Hossein Kazemi),  HTM (Hospitality and Tourism Management)  Professor Bob Wilson, our Isenberg Editor, Lou Wigdor, and his son, Ari Wigdor (who recently returned from an Isenberg School service trip to South Africa), and Professor Sharma of Management, and my husband.

It was quite the road trip (both to and back from Boston) with conversations that had us laughing out loud plus a lot of fun with Twitter exchanges.

This was the third such Leadership evening and this time we were honoring Denise Coll, who had a meteoric career as President, North American Starwood Hotels, and is one of our HTM alums, and also Dr. Bernard T. Lee, who is an Online MBA alum, plus the Chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.  Each spoke of the outstanding education that they received at Isenberg. Coll gave us a very entertaining overview of her first job, post college graduation, working as a planner and cook for a camp for 80 girls in western Massachusetts (they all survived the summer camp).  Dr. Lee noted that he is in the business of heathcare and when he rose in terms of leadership positions he realized that what he really could have benefited from was courses in Operations Management and Services Marketing (I had to clap). My colleague, Associate Dean John Wells, who heads all of our MBA programs, gave Dr. Lee a wonderful introduction.

Last year, one of my former students,  Christina Calvaneso, who had also worked as an Associate at the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, that I founded and direct, under a sponsorship of an NSF grant, received the same award as Dr. Lee.

Their speeches were truly uplifting and inspiring and are examples of the extraordinary students and alums of the Isenberg School that, we, as faculty, have the honor to teach and interact with.

Beth Gamel. the Managing Director of Argent Wealth Management, was the emcee for the evening and her love of the Isenberg School and generous philanthropy  set the stage for an evening of elegance, warmth, energy, camaraderie, and also celebration of the achievements of the school, especially, in terms of rankings under the leadership for the past half decade of Dean Mark  A.Fuller. Dean Fuller gave a rousing speech with his usual energy, dynamism, and enthusiasm.

I was so happy to see one of my former Operations and Information Management students, Maura MacDonald, who is now a Senior Associate at Grant Thornton in Boston. She was on the Host Committee.

Below, I share photos with you, from the evening gala and networking,  and, since we had about an hour after our arrival in Boston before the start of the cocktail hour, I have included a  photo of some of the faculty heading to shop for a while.

Congratulations to all concerned for an evening of special memories, delicious food, esprit de corps,  and inspiring speeches! Gene Isenberg, who passed away not that long ago,  and after whom our School of Management is named, I am sure was smiling at us from the heavens.

Cybersecurity and Financial Services and Prescriptive Analytics

Yesterday, I had the honor of speaking on Cybersecurity and Financial Services at the INFORMS Analytics Conference in Boston. The conference was very well-organized, the venue at the Westin Waterfront hotel was marvelous, and the speakers came from both industry (many of the top analytics firms as developers and/or users were there) and academia. Also, there were many students and even a good-sized cohot from our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which I highlighted in one of my posts.

I had multiple roles at this conference, which made the experience extra rewarding, and INFORMS staff presented me with the nice streamers below.

My talk was in the Prescriptive Analytics track, which was appropriate, and Dr. Marius Solomon of Northeastern University introduced me. I have known Marius for many years through the Transportation & Logistics Society of INFORMS. He shared with me that there were 104 submissions for presentations and out of these 30 were selected. I had carefully thought about the topics that I would like to speak on and chose Cybersecurity and Financial Services since I believe that cybersecurity is a topic that could greatly benefit from analytics and operations research methodologies and the wonderful geeks and brainiacs in our professional community for whom tough problems are both challenging and enticing!

It was great to have Dr. Irv Lustig of IBM  in the audience and some of you may know that Irv was also an Applied Math major at Brown University and I was his TA for an operations research  course taught there by my dissertation advisor Professor Stella Dafermos. Irv is well-known at INFORMS and very active in its Certified Analytics Professional program.   I posted a photo of Irv and me in my previous blogpost. 

Irv asked good questions, but, then again, he has had an outstanding education (his doctoral dissertation advisor at Stanford was Professor George Dantzig, one of the founders of Operations Research). And we continued the discussion after my presentation. Great to hear that IBM is also interested in Financial Networks!

In my presentation I spoke about a project that was funded by the Advanced Cyber Security Center (ACSC) and then segued into our NSF project.

My full presentation, in pdf format, can be downloaded from the Supernetworks Center website.

In the presentation I highlighted a network model that we developed to assess financial network vulnerability and importance of different financial network components, described a network economic model of cyber crime, and also discussed our latest NSF project on envisioning a Future Internet Architecture that we are calling ChoiceNet. Imagine if we could enhance the resilience of the network through redesign.

Thanks to INFORMS for organizing such a fabulous analytics conference!

Highlights of INFORMS Boston Analytics Conference Through Photos

Today the sun has (finally) come out in Boston and it is the last day of the GREAT INFORMS Analytics Conference in Boston. I will be speaking later today on Cybersecurity and Financial Services, on research funded by the Advanced Cyber Security Center and the National Science Foundation.

I my previous post on this blog I included some photos of our UMass Amherst students who are attending this conference.

Below I have posted some photos from talks, networking events and also the Edelman Awards gala at which the CDC received the 2014 Edelman Award for its efforts in eradicating polio.

INFORMS Registration Area

 

Keynote Talk by Tom Davenport

Coffee with  Member

 Numerous Networking Opportunities

 Superb Supply Chain Talks

Serendipity of Seeing Colleagues and Students

The Edelman Gala with a Delicious Dessert

The analytics conference has been an intellectual and professional  feast!