Celebrating a Great Year for the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter

This past Friday, we celebrated the end of the semester and the end of the academic year with our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party.

The officers and members have done an outstanding job this year bringing speakers, two from Europe, from both academia and industry, to share with us the latest on the challenges in the electric power industry, disaster management, healthcare and electronic records, cybersecurity workforce optimization as well as community-based operations research. In addition, the students, who come primarily from our doctoral program in Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management as well as the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in the UMass Amherst College of Engineering, also organized several social events.

This has been such a great year - and as the chapter's Faculty Advisor since 2004 I can attest to that - that we needed a special celebration at our party.

To honor this year's chapter officers whose esprit de corp, positive energy, innovations, plus logistics knowhow, which allows for such great parties (but, then again, these are operations research and management science students who practice what they preach), I presented the officers with a special award. Last Fall the chapter was honored with the Summa Cum Laude Award from INFORMS another truly memorable accolade.

Below is a photo of the group of officers with their award plaques, to which I also attached personal notes of appreciation for their hard work.

The cuisine at the party included pizza, fresh fruit, chicken wings, Ukrainian food, Indian food, many salads, and healthy sandwiches, and, of course, numerous delicious desserts. Faculty came from the Isenberg School as well as from Engineering even though the party began with a thunderstorm and lots of rain. Last year's chapter President, Michael Prokle, who received the Judith B. Liebman Awad from INFORMS at our annual conference in Philadelphia last Fall, traveled from Boston to the party.

The party began about 4:30PM and ended close to 7PM. There was a lot of laughter and great conversations and it is so rewarding to see everyone having such a great time and supporting one another. The friendships continue after the students receive their PhDs and graduate from UMass Amherst. Even undergraduates enjoy the event and one of my students, who successfully defended his undergraduate honors thesis in humanitarian logistics earlier that day, Emilio Alvarez Flores, also made it to the festivities and enjoyed talking with graduate students and faculty.

Thanks to all the faculty and students who came. The energy and enthusiasm are fabulous.

 

Clearly, given that next week is the last week of the semester we are all so busy but building our great community is very meaningful.

Below are photos of several of the individual award recipients.

The full roster of officers is recognized below.

 And one of my favorite photos is the one below, which truly captures the spirit of this great group!

Looking forward to another great academic year next year.

Best of luck to all those who are graduating - the class of 2016!

Photos from the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Party

It was a great year for the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter with wonderful seminar talks,  the visit of Dr. Radhika Kulkari, VP of R&D of SAS, who is an INFORMS Fellow, and our tour of ISO New England, which monitors electric power reliability for all of New England.

Another highlight this year was celebrating the 10th anniversary of the chapter.


As the Faculty Advisor to this chapter, I always find it so rewarding to see the students flourish as leaders and members and this year I want to especially thank all the Chapter Officers: Michael Prokle (President), Amirhossein Alamdar Yazdi (Vic President), Sara Saberi (Treasurer),  Heng Chen and Kayla Monahan (Secretaries), Tulay Varol (Event Coordinator), Pritha Dutta (Communications Director), and Ekin Koker (Webmaster).


Yesterday afternoon we celebrated the end of the semester with a tradition, and we can certainly call it a tradition, since the chapter is now almost 11 years old, and we "end" each semester with a party with international cuisine and great conversations! The students and faculty come from the Isenberg School of Management and also the College of Engineering.

This year we even had two of our Operations and Information Management undergrad alums come back - Jan Sudra, who works for United Technologies (and just completed his MBA at UConn) and Zheng "WeiWei"  Ding, who works and lives in Manhattan, and graduated last year from the Isenberg School with a degree in Operations and Information Management. She took a Megabus yesterday yesterday from NYC.

Below I have posted some photos from our party yesterday. Thanks to all those who support our students throughout he year. This has been a great slate of officers to work with and it has been so much fun. Amazing what our students accomplish both in the classroom and beyond!

I was very busy talking so did not take as many photos as usual. I wish everyone best of luck with final exams and projects!

Congrats to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter on its 9th National Award!

Late yesterday I returned to Amherst from the INFORMS Annual Conference, which took place in San Francisco. Several of our PhD students took the red-eye shuttle and returned this morning!

The conference was wonderful and a highlight was watching our students from the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which is based at the Isenberg School, being recognized for their hard work with the cum laude award from INFORMS for their chapter activities. This year, the chapter received its 9th award in a row, which I suspect must be a record. The chapter's members are graduate students from the Isenberg School of Management and the College of Engineering, principally, from the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.

Below are featured photos taken at the award ceremony, which took place this past Monday evening, November 10,  at our conference in San Francisco. What an amazing turnout - even some students who had received their PhDs a year or two ago came to support the new cohort and to celebrate with them. Plus. one of our MBA students, Ben Joyney, also came.

As the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter for over a decade now, I congratulate this great group! The friendships continue even after they graduate and leave UMass!

Waiting for the award ceremony to begin

 The UMass Amherst INFORMS student members are called to the podium and receive their award plaque from David Hunt and are congratulated by Gino Lim

This year's Chapter President, Michael Prokle, holding the award - last year's President was Shivani Shukla, who prepared the annual report, which was vital for the judging outcome

 The students with two former officers, Drs. Min Yu and Farbod Farhadi on the far right,  enjoy posing with their award plaque

And, after the award ceremony, we were treated to a reception, with the beautiful desserts displayed below

Congratulations to the Officers and the members - it is a pleasure to work with all of you!

Isenberg Graduate Students Excel in Award-Winning Student Chapter

The Isenberg School at UMass Amherst has issued a press release on the award that our INFORMS Student Chapter will receive on November 9, 2010 at the INFORMS Conference in Austin, Texas.

Our student chapter will be honored for the fourth year in a row with a national award from INFORMS for its activities. This year we will be receiving the magna cum laude award.

As Faculty Advisor to this terrific group of students, I could not be happier for them. They accomplish so much professionally and socially through teamwork, dedication, and innovation.

Last year's President of the student chapter, Min Yu, who is a doctoral student in Management Science, and also my student, will be joining me in Austin, Texas to receive the award on behalf of our chapter.

For the full press release click here.

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter website can be accessed here.

Even today, on a gorgeous Fall day, this group of students will be hosting a ping pong tournament, complete with pizza, refreshments, and prizes! A former member, Thomas Lenk, who happens to be visiting Amherst from Germany will take part!