The Outstanding Pardalos 70 Conference in Greece

It has been only a few days since the outstanding Pardalos 70 conference in Halkidiki, Greece and the aura continues.

Conferees gathered from 5 continents to celebrate Professor Panos M. Pardalos on his 70th birthday. The talks were excellent (clearly, everyone worked very hard to present their best work) with many including photos and comments on what Pardalos has meant to them as scholars and as a mentor and even a friend.

Panos has supervised the dissertations of over 60 PhD students and has received numerous well-deserved honors and recognitions, including election as INFORMS Fellow and the EURO Gold Medal plus the Constantin Caratheodory Prize. His impact on global optimization, operations research, and numerous applications is profound. The organizers of this conference: Sergiy Butenko, Athanasios (Sakis) Migdalas, and Oleg Prokopyev did an incredible job in site selection, banquet and activity organization, and overall theme selection plus logistics. 

Thanks also to the Program Committee: Vladimir Boginskii, Altannar Chinchuluun, Dalila Martins Fontes, Faruque Hasan, Pavlo Krokhmal, Foad Mahdavi Pajouh, Dmytro Matsypura, Leonidas Pitsoulis, Themistocles Rassias, Mauricio G. C. Resende, and Petros Xanthopoulos for putting together such a fascinating set of single track sessions on the conference theme of "Optimization, Analytics, and Decisions in the Big Data Era." I very much enjoyed also serving on the Program Committee.  The presentations were on topics ranging from sports analytics (quite relevant with the EURO Cup now) to machine learning, complex networks, various aspects of game theory, energy and supply chain applications, and so much more! It was heartwarming to hear in many of the talks how the presenters met Professor Panos Pardalos and his impact on their lives. 

A theme that permeated the conference is that of wonderful friendships, great collaborations, and experiences. Special thanks to Mauricio G. C. Resende for kicking off the conference with his talk on his 30+ years of collaboration with Professor Pardalos. I have been proud to collaborate with Panos for over three decades and we have a new edited Dynamics of Disasters volume going to press shortly with Co-Editors also Ilias Kotsireas, Stefan Pickl, and Chrysafis Vogiatzis. Warm acknowledgments to Professor Stefan Pickl for the presentation of lovely gifts to Panos at the banquet. A very moving part of this conference was seeing a proclamation from the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in honor of Panos in the presentation given by Tetyana Romanova on work with Petro Stetsyuk and Andreas Fischer.

Below is a collage of photos from the conference.

More information on the conference: https://sites.google.com/view/panos-70/home

And it was quite remarkable to have so many Ukrainians in attendance and as speakers. Although Ukraine lost its first Euro Cup match, it did win its second one against Slovakia and Sergiy Butenko was at the match in Germany with his family.

Below is a photo of the Ukrainians at the Pardalos conference.

Wishing Professor Panos M. Pardalos wonderful experiences on his new journeys!

Very Excited About the IFORS Conference in Santiago (Where It Is Winter) and the Dynamics of Disasters Conference in Athens (Where It Is Summer)

Academics are quite good at conferencing and also in optimizing when it comes to packing, etc. Nevertheless, packing for essentially back to back conferences on different continents and seasons can be a challenge especially if the plan is to only have a single carryon as luggage.

In 2006, I spoke at successive conferences in Cyprus (Limassol), Iceland (Reykjavik), and then in Italy (Erice). Family members joined me in Iceland and brought some warm clothing since the temperature, while we were there and it was officially summer, never rose about 48 degrees F. Some reflections on packing for the stream of conferences.

Soon I will be flying to Athens, Greece for the Dynamics of Disasters conference that I co-organized, and then, via Madrid, to the IFORS Conference in Santiago, Chile.

I am thrilled to be delivering a keynote talk, entitled, "Agricultural Supply Chain Networks: From Trade to Resilience and How OR Can Help," at the IFORS Conference.

My keynote will highlight some of our research over the past decade on agricultural supply chain networks including recent work with collaborators in Ukraine. Information on this conference can be found here. I am very honored to be on the list of plenary and keynote speakers.

Also, at the IFORS conference, I'll be taking part in the "Meet the ITOR Editors" panel, which was organized by the outstanding Editor of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) journal Celso C. Ribeiro! Joining us on the panel is the previous President of IFORS Grazia Speranza and Mario Guajardo. ITOR recently celebrated its 30th anniversary with a special issue. I was delighted to have my tutorial paper on ``Fragile Networks," co-authored with Qiang "Patrick" Qiang included in this special issue. The tutorial paper was based on a tutorial that I gave at the ALIO INFORMS conference in Buenos Aires.

I am very much looking forward to seeing conferees from many continents at this IFORS conference, including my former Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Dmytro Matsypura, who will travel from Australia. He is Chair of the Business Analytics Department at the University of Sydney. The President of IFORS is now Janny Leung and she is traveling from Macao!

And, prior to the IFORS conference, I will be experiencing the warmth of a Mediterranean summer at the Dynamics of Disasters Conference. We have an outstanding lineup of plenary speakers and I thank them all for accepting our invitations. This is the 6th Dynamics of Disasters Conference! It was such a pleasure to work with Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, and Chrys Vogiatzis on this conference.

My presentation at this conference will be on joint work with my PhD student Dana Hassani and colleagues in Ukraine at the Kyiv School of Economics: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev.

There is clearly and agricultural theme to my presentations at both these international conferences. In fact, at the Dynamics of Disasters one, we also a special Acknowledgment and Dedication.

Back to packing for the conferences with my new suitcase purchased after I wore out my favorite one!

Safe travels to all those heading to conferences!

In Appreciation of the Wonderful Guest Speakers in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

As the semester draws to a close, as well as the academic year, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the wonderful guest speakers in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this semester. In a class such as this, the students learn a tremendous amount from practitioners and, even more so, given their immense challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On February 18, 2021, we had the honor of hearing from Mr. Tim Pitoniak, who is a Regional Disaster Program Officer for the American Red Cross (ARC) in Massachusetts. Mr. Pitoniak spent the first 10 years of his Red Cross career in Greater New York where his focus was staffing, training, and partnerships. He assumed his position in Massachusetts in 2015 and has been the job director for multiple large operations, including the 2018 Lawrence gas explosion. He has regularly been deployed to national jobs, working in leadership roles for disasters all over the continental U.S.  and Puerto Rico. Mr. Pitoniak shared with us the challenges the Red Cross has faced in the pandemic and how it has been able to provide certain support services virtually, because of the need for social distancing. The students were amazed by the number of volunteers associated with the ARC and also how they are constantly adapting to provide a wide range of services, and not only to disaster victims.

On March 2, 2021, we were honored to have Dr. George Karagiannis Zoom in all the way from Athens, Greece for his guest lecture. Dr. Karagiannis is Greece's Deputy Secretary-General for Civil Protection, the US equivalent of Deputy FEMA Administrator. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Technical Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Center, where his area of expertise revolved around emergency management, critical infrastructure protection, and hybrid threats. Prior to joining the Joint Research Center, he was a Disaster Management Consultant. The title of his guest lecture was, "Humanitarian Needs Assessment & Information Management."  So many of the insights provided by Dr. Karagiannis resonated with the students, including his emphasis on the use of technology and even AI for needs assessment. And he also told the class that, despite what you see on TV and in the movies, one rarely gains much information from helicopter rides over disaster areas. Additional information and discussion during his great talk can be found on my blogpost here.

I am delighted that Dr. Karagiannis has accepted our invitation to be a plenary speaker at the next Dynamics of Disasters conference that I am, again, co-organizing with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, but this time it will be virtual. More information can be accessed here with additional information being posted in the coming weeks.

On March 11, 2021, the students and I were thrilled to have Ms, Dawn Brantley present to the class. She is the Assistant Director for Planning and Preparedness for MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) and was responsible for establishing  a program of COVID Isolation Hotels, which was also the topic of her presentation. The subtitle of it (and this spoke volumes) was: "building a plane while you fly it." Her presentation was absolutely mesmerizing. The initiative was made operational in 7 days and the logistics behind it were incredible, with so many issues such as food provision, laundry services, nursing care, and so much more needed. And to accomplish so much with attention having to be paid to COVID protocols. It was not easy getting certain hotels "on board," especially with some local communities not being supportive.

The dedication of Ms. Brantley to this important enterprise and that of her team were truly inspiring! The ARC had also been assisting in this endeavor so there was some nice synergy with Mr. Pitoniak's guest lecture. March 11, 2021, the day of Ms. Brantley's presentation,  was  the one year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the COVID-19 pandemic!

I cannot thank all the speakers sufficiently - they were fighting the pandemic on the front lines and still made time to help in the education of students.  They left a lasting impact and were part of a transformative educational experience. Each was presented with a special letter that I wrote as well as a certificate signed by our great Dean Anne P. Massey in appreciation.

On March 23, 2021, we had the Nursing Director Team from Cooley Dickinson Hospital present to my class. The title of the panel presentation was,  "Cooley Dickinson Hospital: A Year of COVID: Readiness, Response and Resilience." There were 8 speakers who shared with us their incredible work in transforming parts of the hospital to be able to handle more COVID patients and how personnel were retrained and needed PPEs acquired. 

No healthcare worker contracted COVID, which is, frankly, remarkable and such a relief. I wrote an earlier blogpost on the nursing team and sent my thank you letter to the Interim Director of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Dr. Brown, who responded so quickly. Some of the lessons learned included the importance of communications and appreciating the workers' fatigue and challenges.

The team also shared a video with us and there was not a dry eye in the audience. I would like to, again, thank the incredible panelists: Angela Belmont, VP, Patient Care Services & Chief Nursing Officer, Lynn M. Grondin, Director of Nursing for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Mike Netta, Director of Operations for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Alexandra Penzias, Director of Nursing and Professional Practice Education, Sara C. McKeown, Nurse Director, Emergency Department, Ann LeBrun, Nursing Director, Critical Care Services, Margaret-Ann Azzaro, Director, Medical Surgical & Childbirth Services, Jacquelyn Ouellette, Director, Behavioral Unit.

On March 30, we had our very "own" Mr. Jeff Hescock join us. Mr. Hescock is the Executive Director of EH&S and Emergency Management at UMass Amherst. The students have been receiving many messages from Mr. Hescock since the pandemic was declared and he, along with his staff and Ms. Ann Becker, have been behind our outstanding COVID-19 testing and now vaccinations! On the day that he spoke, Mr. Hescock told us that UMass Amherst had by then done 400,000 COVID tests and 16,000 vaccinations! He emphasized the important role of testing, contact tracing, and also isolation quarters at UMass Amherst as well as the role of our nursing students in testing and vaccinations. It has been an extraordinary team effort and the students, the community at large, the faculty, and staff are so grateful for the outstanding work of Mr. Hescock and his team in keeping us safe.

The students, as well as I, learned so much from our guest speakers and each left an indelible impression on us. 

The Book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions is Published by Springer Nature!

On March 12, 2021, I received an email from Springer Nature, which is the publisher of the book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, that I had co-edited with Ilias. S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, and Arsenios Tsokas. The email was addressed to Frau Anna Nagurney and stated that the book had been published and was being shipped to my home. I hope that in future correspondence I would be addressed either as Professor or Dr. since my marital status should not be relevant, I would think. 

The next day, quite amazingly, a box with 3 copies of the new book was delivered to our door!

This book is a collection of 16 refereed papers, plus a preface, and is based on the latest Dynamics of Disasters conference that I co-organized with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, which took place in Kalamata, Greece in 2019, plus several invited contributions. More information on this international conference can be found here. It was a wonderful conference and the third that I had the pleasure of co-organizing with my outstanding colleagues.

The conference attracted participants and speakers from many different countries, including Canada, Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, Nepal, and the US and was a fabulous forum for the exchange of ideas and scientific discussions at a beautiful venue. It is remarkable how our world has changed since due to the COVID-19 pandemic!

The edited volume contains results on many timely topics and the full list of chapter titles and additional information can be found on the publisher's website for the book. Some of the topics in the volume include: drones for disaster assessment, impact of labor disruptions to food supply chains in the COVID-19 pandemic, problems of human migration, infrastructure network resilience, cyber crises, the prevention of geological disasters, the use of blockchain technology, and many others!

The preface describing each of the papers in the volume and the Table of Contents, can be directly accessed here.

UMass Amherst produced this nice news article on our new book.

We are also in the planning stages for the 5th Dynamics of Disasters Conference, which is to take place in Athens, Greece, in mid July in 2021. More information on the conference can be found on the conference website.

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly added additional complexity to all phases of disaster management and, with disasters increasing in frequency as well as in negative impact, holding such a conference in 2021 is very much needed. Hoping that, with vaccinations and mitigation procedures, it can take place face to face.

A Big Thanks to Dr. George Karagiannis for His Brilliant Guest Lecture in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

This past week, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting Dr. George Karagiannis in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class, which, this year, is being taught remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An integral part of this course is having guest lecturers who are expert practitioners. Hearing from such experts reinforces the course material and provides for a rich educational experience for the students.

Now, for some background on Dr. Karagiannis, whom I met back in 2015, when I co-organized the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, and Dr. Karagiannis was a speaker. We also hosted him for a seminar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Fall of 2015.

Dr. George Karagiannis is Greece's Deputy Secretary-General for Civil Protection, the US equivalent of Deputy FEMA Administrator. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Technical Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Center, where his area of expertise revolved around emergency management, critical infrastructure protection and hybrid threats. Prior to joining the Joint Research Center, he was a Disaster Management Consultant. He has worked in four countries, developed two strategic national risk assessments, organized over 60 exercises, led the development of a dozen emergency operations plans and responded to disasters in the field. He also was a Research Scientist at the Technical University of Crete in Greece, where he his interdisciplinary research lay at the intersection of systems engineering and disaster resilience. George earned his Doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering from Saint-Etienne School of Mines in France. He also holds degrees in Civil Engineering and in Disaster Management and Business Administration, and is a Certified Emergency Manager by the International Association of Emergency Managers.

Dr. Karagiannis's presentation title in my course was, "Humanitarian Needs Assessment & Information Management." He zoomed in from Athens, Greece, which was lovely since the students in this class are physically located not only in Massachusetts but across the US, with a student even enrolled, who is now in Turkey.

Due to multiple inquiries and requests, Dr. Karagiannis has given me permission to post the slide deck of his excellent presentation.

So many excellent insights and recommendation are contained in his presentation, which I urge you to study. Some of the takeaways that very much resonated with me and also reinforced the material that we have been covering in the class and will be addressing in subsequent weeks are the following:

1. Help flows were there are cameras. This statement demonstrates the importance of media in getting the news out but also emphasizes that, at times, people who are victims of disasters may not get the help that they need.

2. Goods may be donated and delivered that do not help the victims - such as fur coats from Greece following the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006! The wrong goods create extra stressors (even if they are donated in good faith) since they require human resources to offload and also take up valuable storage space. In the case of the furs, they ultimately created a health hazard. I recall tuxedos being delivered to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and there are many other such incredible stories of the wrong goods.

3. When do you stop gathering data? How much data is "good enough" for needs assessment?

4. The recognition of the importance of time is paramount. If it takes a time t for needs assessment, it will take a time of 2t for making a decision.

5. One must distinguish primary data from secondary data.

6. Comparison over time is also essential in terms of the number of people displaced by the disaster.

7. One of the greatest challenges is learning to make decisions with only incomplete information when everything is at stake!

8. There is a shift of Emergency Management now in addressing infrastructure, which makes tremendous sense due to the negative impacts of climate change on infrastructure.

I very much like that he noted the UN Cluster Approach to support sector emergency functions, which we had emphasized in the course just a few days prior.

We also had a great discussion on how well Greece mitigated the spread of the coronavirus, starting their preparations already in early January! The country was very agile and reacted quickly.

The students were prepared with questions for the speaker. Dr. Karagiannis was so generous with his time - staying way past the class time window to answer questions.

And we honored him with a Professor for a Day certificate recognizing that his contributions.

Highlights from Fascinating Dynamics of Disasters 2017 Conference in Greece

The 2017 Dynamics of Disasters conference has now come to an end. The Elite Resort Hotel in Kalamata, Greece was the location of the conference.

The conference attracted speakers and participants from 4 different continents: North America, South America, Europe, and even Australia! Kalamata, Greece  is a bit remote (but that is also part of the allure), so this level of international representation is quite impressive.

The caliber of scientific presentations delivered by the speakers with the breadth and depth of both methodologies and applications was excellent. I am sure that new research will be generated from the presentations, warm discussions, and new collaborations formed.

I especially would like to acknowledge my fellow co-organizers of this conference: Professor Fuad Aleskerov of  the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia, Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas of the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, and Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida Gainesville.

Below is a photo of  Professor Kotsireas at the registration desk with nice Isenberg School of Management folders for the conference program.

Below is a photo of the conference group taken on the balcony of the conference venue.  The location has magnificent mountains, proximity to the Mediterranean (and beaches), as well as lovely flowers and vegetation.

 

The conference program can be downloaded here. As always happens in any international conference, there were a few last minute changes.

Professor Panos M. Pardalos opened up the conference with a few words also from Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas.

The audience had many opportunities for questions and additional discussions.

 

Speaking of papers reflecting the breadth of applications, there was a presentation on disaster communications by the "other" Professor Nagurney (Ladimer S. of the University of Hartford),  one on food security and relationships to conflicts by Professor Fuad Aleskerov, who also presented on the modeling of oil spills, and two on freight issues in humanitarian logistics. One of the latter talks was given by Timo Gossler on joint work with his Professor, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, who organized the EURO HOpe conference in Vienna just last week, at which I also spoke at and blogged about. I presented a paper on game theory and multitiered freight service provision for humanitarian disaster relief.

 

Timo Gossler also delivered another excellent presentation on cash transfers in the humanitarian sector  for a colleague at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Ioanna Falagara Sigala, on joint work of hers with Professor Fuminori Toyasaki of York University on Toronto.


The Imperial College group in London led by Professor Panagiotis Angeloudis had two outstanding talks, one on network flows and interdependent infrastructure systems after disruptions with a case study, appropriately, on London's public transportation network and electric power (given by Nils Goldbeck), and the other on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and medical deliveries using trajectory optimization, given by Jose Escribano. Not only were important applications presented but also rigorous methodologies.

I had the pleasure of having two of the three coauthors on our latest game theory network model that integrates logistics and financial funds present at the conference: Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy and Emilio Alvarez Flores, who is an Isenberg School of Management, alumnus, and who now is at Cisco. We presented on a General Nash Equilibrium model that integrates both logistical aspects of disaster relief as well as financial funds and extends a paper of min with Emilio and Ceren Soylu that was published in Transportation Research E.

Sofia Papadaki, on work with Professor Folinas, and other coauthors, gave a very interesting talk on refugees and associated humanitarian logistics of providing relief. She also presented on work of her professor on International Mine Action Standards and quality issues.

Professor Soumia Ichoua of  Embry-Riddle University in Florida spoke on the prepositioning of emergency supplies to support disaster relief over a planning horizon using a stochastic programming approach, along with a case study to North Carolina using a large dataset. Her work was with several co-authors. 

Roberta Messalli  presented a paper with Professor Lina Mallozzi of the University of Naples on equilibrium analysis for common pool resources, which I also enjoyed very much and was delighted to see citations to the Mobel laureate in economics - Dr. Elinor Ostrom (who remains to-date the only female recipient of this prize and sadly passed a way a short time ago) and also to Dr. Daron Acemoglu. Both these outstanding researchers I had the chance to hear speak (and the latter even host) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

It was very interesting to see applications driving advances in modeling and theory and it is clear that the researchers' passion for a topic often has some personal resonance. We were privileged to hear the talk of Professor Dmytro Matsypura, who traveled all the way from the University of Sydney in Australia, and who spoke on his joint work with Professor Oleg Prokopyev of the University of Pittsburgh. Matsypura presented a paper on wildfire management through the use of network-based models and optimization of prescribed burning. The paper has been accepted for publication in the European Journal of Operational Research. Wildfires are an international issue and there was also a very interesting talk by a group from Chile: Gabriela Alfaro, Pablo Escalona, and Monica Lopez-Campos on the use of coverage models for the allocation of mobile units for forest fire extinguishing with a case study on Valparaiso.

In addition to the scientific sessions there were also social events including an excursion to the Diros underground caves as well as a conference banquet. At the Diros caves, a true natural wonder, the group git to see breathtaking stalactites and stalagmites while being propelled by a tour guide in boats and when told to "duck", you had better do so.

Photos of the conferees getting ready for the conference excursion to the Diros caves are below.

 

 Of course, there were other opportunities to enjoy breakfasts, lunches, breaks, and even the scenery together. Several conferees even managed to make it to the beach.

 

 

 

 In addition to the amazing company, the food was delicious!

Many thanks to my fellow conference co-organizers and to the speakers who traveled to share their research on topics of great relevance to the dynamics of disasters. I leave you with a photo of a sunset in beautiful Kalamata.