A Big Thank You to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

This summer I had the great pleasure of being back at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University as a Summer Fellow. This program was made available to those who had been Fellows at Radcliffe and wanted to return. Having had an incredible year as a Science Fellow back in 2005-2006, and also having been a Summer Fellow in 2017, I knew that I wanted to return for numerous reasons.

The past two months of being back at Radcliffe and living in Cambridge, at 83 Brattle Street, have been idyllic. My project theme this summer was entitled: Perishable Product Supply Chains from Food to Blood. During the Summer Fellowship not only did a tremendous amount of work get accomplished (my co-editors and I completed our edited volume: Dynamics of Disasters: Algorithmic Approaches and Applications,with Springer as the publisher, a paper on food supply chains was completed and submitted to a journal, and two other papers are nearing completion, with all acknowledging Radcliffe), but the interactions with the exceptional community of scholars, writers, artists, scientists, engineers, and human rights activists, made for excellent talks, conversations that lingered, new friendships made, and sustenance obtained that will support us in both present and future endeavors. Below are a few photos from the Summer Fellowship including several of the delicious lunches that we were served!

 

 

And, since Cambridge/Boston is such an attractive location globally, I had the pleasure of also hosting students, alums, and friends, with a highlight being dinner at the UMass Club in Boston at which we saw a rainbow over Boston  and the sun setting.

And no wonder I always feel so at home at Radcliffe, the library there has a bunch of my books!

A huge thank you to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, its staff, and its amazing community, which recognizes the importance of multidisciplinary research in pushing the frontiers.

Wonderful to Be Back at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University

This Summer I am a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS)  at Harvard University. I was a Science Fellow at RIAS in 2005-2006, which was a momentous year since, that year, the Dean of Radcliffe, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, was named the first female President of Harvard University and succeeded Dr. Larry Summers. She has had a fabulous tenure as President of Harvard and the new Harvard President will be Dr. Larry Bacow.

Some faculty enjoy taking a break over the summer, I enjoy being challenged. Last summer, I also was a Fellow at RIAS and loved the experience. I was honored when I was invited back.

The Fellows have offices in Byerly Hall, which is situated in the beautiful Radcliffe Yard.

I must say that my experience this summer began when I returned to Radcliffe on May 25, 2018, for the truly special Radcliffe Day, at which Hillary Clinton was awarded the Radcliffe Medal and the day was filled with wonderful panels, talks, including speeches by Madeleine Albright and Hillary, of course,  and a delicious lunch, with the Dean of Radcliffe, Dr. Liz Cohen, officiating and she did a stupendous job!

I was delighted to see several of the Radcliffe Fellows in my 2005-2006 cohort at Radcliffe Day, including Science Fellows Rina Dechter of UC Irvine and Diane Souvaine of Tufts, both computer scientists, so we took the photo in the garden below as a memento. Diane is now the Chair of the National Science Board - very impressive!

During my Summer Fellowship at Harvard University, I am working on a project very near and dear to me: Perishable Product Supply Chains from Food to Blood.

I have a standing desk in my office, which I love

and, in addition, to interacting with other fellows and even meeting students working with fellows (today I had lunch with a female computer science major at Harvard who is from Amherst and went to Amherst High School!), I always enjoy hosting visitors since Cambridge/Boston is such an international magnet.

On May 28, 2018, I had the pleasure of showing Professor Kei May Lau, a distinguished professor from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), who was in town attending a conference at MIT, the lovely sunken garden at Radcliffe. Kei May was a Professor at UMass Amherst before moving to HK and is a dear friend.

And, in just a short time, I have solved some problems, revised and resubmitted a paper to a journal with several co-authors from different countries, and have finalized the book: Dynamics of Disasters: Algorithmic Approaches and Applications, that I co-edited with Illias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, which is now in press with Springer Publishing International Switzerland. I also (and it was so convenient) had the pleasure of taking part in the Isenberg School's Business Leadership Awards gala at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston last Thursday. The photo below is with several of my former students (now alums) and colleagues, including the Isenberg School Dean Mark A. Fuller, who is stepping down after 9 years of terrific leadership of our business school at UMass Amherst.

More adventures await! Many thanks to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study for the wonderful support of extraordinary intellectual life!

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.

Scenes from Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and Cambridge

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being back in Cambridge, MA so I had to visit Brattle Street, Radcliffe,  and Harvard Square.

I spent the 2005-2006 year as a Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and that year I wrote my Supply Chain Network Economics book

I have wonderful memories of that year --  of the people that I met, the friends that I made, and of the research  and writing that I did.

I lived on 83 Brattle Street in the building below on the 6th floor.

My office was in Putnam House a few buildings down from my apartment, where, in the Fall that year, one of my neighbors was the French mathematician, Pierrette.Cassou-Nogues from Bourdeaux. 
In the Spring, my collaborator Professor Patrizia Daniele, who is an operations researcher, joined me for several months and Radcliffe provided her with an office in Putnam House, which was terrific! Patrizia is from the University of Catania in Italy and she is also a Supernetwork Center Associate.

Below is a photo taken in front of Putnam House.

Radcliffe Yard looked beautiful and I enjoyed checking out the award-winning sculpture.

The sculpture is an installation called Saturate the Moment.

We wandered over to Bartley's, a Cambridge institution but it was closed.

 

 Cardullo's in Harvard Square had the beautiful gingerbread house in its window below.

Burdick's was open so we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate! 

We had traveled to eastern MA, since my daughter wanted to meet a friend who had returned from a semester abroad at the University of St Andews in Scotland.  The head (known as the Principal and Vice-Chancellor) of St Andrews is Dr. Louise Richardson, who was the Executive Dean of Radcliffe when I was there. You can see her at our Radcliffe Fellows "graduation" ceremony  in the top photo in my blogpost here.

You may recall that Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, the Duke and Dutchess of Cambridge (in England), were recently in NYC for a fundraiser for St Andrews, since they met at this university, and Dr. Richardson can be seen with them here. The 600th anniversary gala for the University of St Andrews took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And, when I returned back to Amherst last night, I had a message from none other than Dr. Pierrette Cassou-Nogues, wishing me a Happy New Year!

One Wish -- A Quiet Hotel

I will be doing a lot of traveling soon, from serving on a panel in the DC area, to giving talks in Cambridge (Massachusetts), Hawaii (an invitation I could not turn down), and Buenos Aires, Argentina (and this is just over the next couple of weeks).

I wish that there would be hotels that would guarantee peace and quiet or, at least, an area of a hotel, where the guests (as well as the staff) would agree to:

1. speak softly

2. close the doors very quietly

3. refrain from having the TV, radio, etc., at a noticable volume

4. not run up and down the halls screaming,

among some other points.

The last business trip that I was on I specifically requested a quiet room only to be put into a room that sounded like a subway tunnel. When I called the receptionist I was told that I was next to the laundry room, so I requested a room change. A hotel staff person then walked with me to several floors to see where it might be "quiet" and, finally, we found a room. After about 30 minutes some not quite "gentlemen" started banging on my door, and then one of them said, there is a "No Disturb Sign" on the knob. Indeed, there was, and I had put it there for a reason. These "guests" had been given a key to my room and were not happy that it was already taken. So I requested another move. By the third attempt, despite the banging of the doors, I stayed put.

I have slept in a rental car in Ireland while my family snoozed in the hotel since I could not stand the loud banging of the doors (and this was by the cleaning staff). The lightning during the storm (and the car was under trees) was preferable to me. At another hotel (also in Ireland, a country which was lovely to visit although I hardly slept there), a set of parents was in a hotel room on one side of us in a hall and their young children were way down the hall in a separate room (from the parents). You can only imagine the traffic back and forth past our room.

I have tried to sleep in a hotel in St. Petersburg, Russia (just before the fall of Communism and the USSR) only to have people peering into our room (my husband and I did not realize that the outdoor porches were connecting). Of course, the babushkas on each floor monitored our comings and goings as well.

I have tried to sleep at a hotel in Oslo only to hear a Back Street Boys concert right outside of it (at least some of the music was bearable in that age).

I tried to sleep in a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, but there was a state high school wresting tournament going on, so sleeping was next to impossible.I still managed to somehow give my talk the next day.

As for NYC, I have found a relatively quiet hotel in Manhattan but will keep it a secret. You don't hear concierges whistling for taxis there nor ambulances and firetrucks blasting by. My suggestion (simple location analysis, really) do not situate a hotel close to a hospital or to a fire or police station!

I never travel without my BOSE headphones, but as wonderful as they are, they do not block out sudden hotel noises. I wish that there would be hotels, where the doors would close quietly, the floors would be carpeted, the walls, ceilings, and windows (which should open to get some air in), would be soundproof, and white noise machines would be placed in each room. Or, perhaps, someone can invent headphones to block out hotel noise (both inside and outside).

The finale -- Happy New Year!

The above treats were sampled and shared recently at the "finale" restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a friend who was visiting from Hong Kong.

Happy New Year!

Harvard University and Surprises

My course on portfolio optimization in the Executive Education program at Harvard University took place at Gund Hall, which is the location of the Graduate School of Design. I taught in Room 111 and had the pleasure of meeting architects, engineers, real estate executives, investors, developers, and entrepreneurs from around the globe. The students in this very intensive program come from many different countries and it was really enjoyable to interact with them although, I must say, the time available was just too short to cover half a century of topics in portfolio optimization! What really touched me was that, after my course, so many of the students wanted to be photographed with me. It was very gratifying. I also very much appreciated the very intelligent questions that the audience raised. I came prepared with not only the lecture materials, which had been copied for the students, but also with several of my books and with recent articles from Forbes and The Economist.

It was a very interesting time to be in Cambridge and to be teaching at Harvard given the incident with Professor Henry Louis Gates, whose home is located just a short walk from Harvard's Graduate School of Design (and, yes, I did see it, along with the various news crew vehicles that were still parked by it and down the street even as late as last Friday and Saturday). Every place that I ate at, the conversations at neighboring tables were about "the professor, the policeman, and the president."

Harvard Square is one of my favorite places and part of its charm is that it is such a magnet and one tends to recognize people there and to be recognized. After teaching on Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Judith Vichniac there. Dr Vichniac is the head of the Fellows program at The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Of course, we exchanged hugs since she played such a pivotal role in the success of my fellowship year at Radcliffe from 2005-2006.

Part of the draw of an extended stay in Cambridge, whether as a Fellow or as an Instructor, is the opportunity to explore Boston and I share with you some photos of Boston above and below taken yesterday.