President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Back at UMass Amherst

Yesterday, was a very busy, fascinating day with the return of Dr. Tymofiy Mylovanov to UMass Amherst. Mylovanov is the long-term President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine. He has led this private university for over 3 years in war-time. Enrollment has tripled; many new programs have been started, including in engineering, an, through its KSE Institute, numerous timely white papers have been published, that are regularly cited in the media. KSE, even in wartime, has hosted many dignitaries and thought leaders. Mylovanov regularly speaks to the media, including CNN.

The day was blustery, with 60 mile an hour winds. Mylovanov told me about the turbulence on his flight from Reagan National in DC to Bradley Airport (our local airport) in Connecticut. Luckily, on the third attempt, the pilot landed the plane safely!

I had helped to organize his visit and talk, with assistance from the Office of Global Affairs and the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. It was Mylovanov's 3rd visit to UMass Amherst since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Shortly after that date, I was elected Co-Chair of the KSE Board of Directors but continue to serve on its International Academic Board. Very quickly UMass Amherst and KSE signed a series of MOUs and our global partnership was established.

Thanks to the Office of Global Affairs at UMass Amherst and its Director, Vice Provost Dr. Kalpen Trivedi, and Kim Stender for organizing the excellent lunch at The Commonwealth Restaurant with Provost Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Dr. Trivedi, the Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dr. Karl Rethemeyer, and Senior Associate Dean Lisa Masteralexis joining us. 

Since Mylovanov is having a big birthday in a few days, we surprised him with dessert and Happy Birthday and his name written out in chocolate.

Afterwards, we had a terrific, informal Meet and Great in the Elkins Room at the Isenberg School, which included the exchange students from KSE, some of our Operations Management PhD students, my OIM Department Chair, Professor Senay Solak, and Professor Bogdan Prokopovych.

We then, as a group, headed to the IALS building where Mylovanov gave the talk, "Future of Europe if Ukraine Loses," to a packed audience of students, faculty, and staff from UMass Amherst, and even from Amherst College and the community. The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, whose President this year is my PhD student, Ismael Pour, did a fantastic job promoting this event. In fact, the announcement for Mylovanov's seminar was posted all week on the UMass Amherst homepage!

There was a great reception afterwards with delicious food and desserts.

We escorted Dr. Mylovanov back to his car and onwards to Bradley and DC.  Today, he flies to London and will visit several cities in different countries before his return to KSE and Kyiv.

Below is a collage of photographs from his very special visit.

Thanks to all who were able to join us!

Suitcase Packing Optimization - 3 Weeks in Europe in 5 Countries and 1 Carry On Suitcase

I recently returned from 3 weeks in Europe and managed with just 1 carry on suitcase, despite beginning the trip with a conference in hot Halkidiki, Greece and ending the travel with a conference in cool and rainy Copenhagen.

After United lost my suitcase (never found) after a 2 week business trip to Japan, I will (almost) never check in a suitcase. Below is a photo of my carry on.

I heard from several conferees at the EURO Conference in Copenhagen that their luggage had not arrived, including the suitcase of a child of a conferee.

The 3 weeks in Europe entailed, besides the two conferences that I had blogged about and included photos of; see  https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-outstanding-pardalos-70-conference.html for info on the Halkidiki conference in honor of Panos M. Pardalos and here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/07/complex-societal-problems-and.html for highlights of the EURO conference in Copenhagen.

In the 3 weeks of travel, not only were there multiple flights (and in southern Europe one usually gets bussed to the plane and then has to march up a flight of stairs to board the plane and then back down again after landing), but also multiple train trips plus some travel on busses.

Along with my spouse, who was marvelous at helping me to haul my carry on up and down flights of stairs, we traveled from Halkidiki to Thessaloniki, onwards to Vienna, where I met with my former PhD student Tina Wakolbinger (whom I also saw in Copenhagen), and then off to Brno in Czechia, where we visited the university where my father had studied electrical engineering.  Also, in Brno, I had a virtual Co-Chairs Board of Directors of the Kyiv School of Economics meeting. It was interesting to hold it in a hotel room, but everything worked out splendidly and it was exciting to reconnect and also meet with KSE President Tymofii Mylovanov and on European time! Then we were off to Prague (it was our first time in Czechia) and, subsequently, we flew to Gothenburg, Sweden where I visited the University of Gothenburg, where I had a multiyear appointment. We took the train from there through Malmo to Copenhagen, a lovely trip, during which I wrote an invited essay.

OK, so what did I pack - this took a lot of thought but optimization is in my DNA and I used each and every item. I packed a navy pant suit, a navy skirt suit, a warmer navy sweater, 3 poplin long-sleeved shirts (white, black, and blue), two polo shirts (I wore one on the plane, along with khaki pants and a navy sporty blazer with an emblem), two long sleeved elegant dresses, and 3 short sleeved ones, two pairs of Bermuda shorts, 1 colorful sweater vest, 2 colorful skirts, socks, stockings, 3 pairs of shoes (1 dressy plus the ones I wore on the flight over) and the usual undergarments and pjs.

Below are a few photos as proof that what I packed was put to good use!

It was great that both in Halkidiki and in Gothenburg we could avail ourselves of a laundry service!

My Panama hat that I had bought in Greece several years ago wore out, but I managed to replace it with a similar one in Vienna.

I also had my made in Ukraine blue and yellow scarf and purchased another scarf in Gothenburg. These were quite useful in chilly Copenhagen.

Thanks to all who made our conferencing and travel in Europe such a pleasure both professionally as well as culturally and socially.

Packing Up for Humanitarian Logistics and Dynamics of Disasters Conferences in Europe

An an operations researcher, I tend to be rather efficient when it comes to packing and travel (also, all the practice definitely helps). However, my most challenging set of trips was, coincidentally, when I was a 2005-2006 Science Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) at Harvard. I am back now at RIAS as a Summer Fellow and loving it. In the summer of 2006, I had a conference in Cyprus, a conference in Iceland, and then a conference in Sicily (all in succession). This meant packing for 2 weeks of hot weather and one week of "cold" weather, with temps in Iceland that never reached above 48F.  I had to do a reconnaissance mission in that my husband and daughter joined me in Iceland and did bring some warmer outfits for me. We did some substitutions as to the hot weather professional outfits that they took back to Massachusetts and I then continued from Iceland to Sicily.

This week, I am flying from Boston to Vienna, Austria, where I will be speaking at  EURO HOpe 2017, which is taking place at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). I was invited to speak at this conference by Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, who was my former PhD student in Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management. She is now the Director of the Research Institute for Supply Chain Management at WU and a Full Professor (achieving this status in record time).

The program for this two day conference is fabulous with many leaders in humanitarian logistics and operations research taking part.

At this conference, I will be speaking on research done with Emilio Alvarez Flores and Ceren Soylu, which was published in the journal Transportation Research E. 

Then, after next weekend, I will be heading from Vienna to Kalamata, Greece, where I co-organized, with Professors Fuad Aleskerov, Ilias S. Kotsireas, and Panos M. Pardalos, the 3rd International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters.

UMass Amherst posted this nice article on the conference.

I had also co-organized, with Kotsireas and Pardalos, the 2nd International Dynamics of Disasters (DOD) conference, and the proceedings volume was published last year.

At the last DOD conference, there were quite a few speakers who will now be speaking at the EURO HOpe conference, including Dr. Burcu Balcik, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, and Dr. Fuminori Toyasaki, and yours truly.


Packing for a conference taking place in the summer in Vienna, Austria,  and in Kalamata, Greece, is much easier than the trifecta of conferences I had to pack for in 2006. For one, the climate, in terms of temperature, is not so different and, also, thank goodness, summer clothing weighs less than winter clothing! And, yes, I always carry on my suitcase, unless, as I did last summer - I have a multimonth appointment as I had had - at the University of Oxford in England. Clearly, the number and size of suitcases that you take on your travels serve as a constraint. I also lift weights so that I can easily put my suitcase in the overhead bin although, I must admit, I do enjoy the courtesy of a gentleman reaching out and assisting me, every once in a while.


I am very much looking forward to the exchange of ideas and research at both of these conferences and in seeing colleagues with a passion for humanitarian logistics and disaster relief from around the globe! At the DOD conference, we will have speakers from the United Nations and from multiple continents. My former doctoral student at the Isenberg School, now Professor, Dr. Dmytro Matsypura, will be coming from the University of Sydney in Australia to speak. It will be extra special to also have three of the four co-authors of our paper, "A Variational Inequality Network Framework for Humanitarian Organizations in Disaster Relief: Effective Product Delivery Under Competition for Financial Funds," coming. Dr. Patrizia Daniele will be traveling from Italy and Emilio Alvarez Flores from the US.

I will also be presenting a paper on freight, game theory, and disaster relief, and the "other" Professor Nagurney, Dr. Ladimer S. Nagurney, will be speaking on disaster communications.

 Happy and safe travels, everyone, wherever your passion leads you!

Germany Reports that Sprouts Were the Source of the E. Coli Outbreak

In a recent blogpost, I wrote about global food supply chains, food safety, and the outbreak of a severe "rare" form of E. Coli in Europe with the epicenter in northern Germany, which has now killed 29 and sickened nearly 3,000.

Today, Germany has concluded that bean sprouts grown in Germany were the source of the E. Coli although it has not been able to identify this particular strain at the source, that is, at the farm(s). According to The New York Times, tests conducted on the sprouts produced only negative results. The decision to blame the sprouts was based on interviews with patients and even restaurant chefs where people had eaten bean sprouts, since it was deemed that those infected were nine times more likely to have eaten bean sprouts than those who had not.

Clearly, further supply chain forensics are needed to be able to fully trace the path(s) that this vegetable product took from the farms to the plates where it was consumed.

Could it have been the trucks that were used for distribution? Or, perhaps, handlers or processors of the sprouts that contaminated the produce? Many questions still remain.

The mystery is not yet solved and until it is more illnesses and deaths can be expected.

Packing as an Optimization Problem -- Off to Europe

I will soon be on a two week trip to Europe to speak at conferences and have begun to pack.

Packing a suitcase is an optimization problem to which we can apply the tools of operations research.

First, consider the constraints:

I am assuming one carryon suitcase which must fit into the overhead compartment in the airplane(s) so I have to deal with a limited volume.

I am also limited as to the weight of the fully packed suitcase since I insist on carrying my suitcase on the plane and having it with me in my travels. (I recall not so fondly having to dump some of my favorite shoes at the Auckland airport since I was over the weight limit and refuse, if at all possible, to check my luggage, since my suitcase from Japan, lost two decades ago, compliments of United, has yet to arrive.) Also, every academic has his share of horror stories of suitcases that arrived at the destination after the talks were given.

One should pack for the weather (so I have been checking the weather forecasts for my two destinations) and for the occasion. I have to give two plenary talks so I have to look professional for the duration of the two conferences (besides my European mother instilled this in me and even as a child she dressed me in suits). In Vienna, the temps are forecasted to be rainy and cooler next week whereas Yalta is a summer tourist destination on the Black Sea and can be quite warm (but probably cooler than in the steamy Northeast of the US now).

Of course (I wonder whether male academics care about this), I believe that the clothing that one takes should be color-coordinated and in good taste (and one should not wear the same outfit every day). Plus, with the right combination of skirts, tops, and accessories (shoes matter, too), one can maximize the number of outfits that one can generate. One has to factor in those evening banquets and conference excursions.

Going for this period of time, one needs to also plan for including some exercise, so I will make do with a good pair of sneakers and some colorful t-shirts and shorts.

Luckily, conferences in the summer only require lighter-weight clothing!

So, I need to identify which resources (pieces of clothing) I should take with me in the carryon suitcase so that they do not exceed the volume of the suitcase nor the weight limit and maximize some representation of the utility or satisfaction that I get from bringing and wearing them. Additional constraints include "matching" type of constraints -- I can't very well just show up in only tops or only bottoms but need each day a complete outfit when I venture out.

One of my most challenging extended business trips took place a few years ago when I had to speak in Cyprus (where it was very hot), then fly to Iceland for a conference (with temps in the mid40s), and then back to give a talk in Erice, Sicily, where it was also very warm. Luckily, my husband and daughter met me in Iceland and brought warm clothing so I did not have to deal with that part.

I emailed my presentations to the organizers of the two conferences so I don't have to lug a laptop but have backups on a pendrive.

I solved the above optimization problem and am delighted with the result. I could include a photo of my suitcase contents but, instead, I will surprise you with photos after this trip.

And, remember to always take an umbrella!