Thanks to Dr. Les Servi for Speaking in Our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series

On April 10, 2026, we had the honor and pleasure of having Dr. Les Servi speak in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. We were very excited to have Dr. Servi back at UMass Amherst. 

The title of his presentation was: “Identifying Critical Nodes in Mission Systems: An Operations Research Framework.” 

Dr. Les Servi is an Operations Research Scientist and former Chief Scientist for Cyber Operations Research at The MITRE Corporation. Earlier, he conducted research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Bell Laboratories, and GTE Laboratories (now Verizon), and spent a sabbatical year as a visiting scientist at Harvard University and MIT.  He has served as an Associate Editor for the journals: Operations Research, Management Science, and the INFORMS Journal on Computing. He is also  a MORS Fellow, an INFORMS Fellow, and served six years on the INFORMS Board of Directors. Dr. Servi is an INFORMS VP Chapters and Forums Board member.

Dr. Servi's book, "Mission Dependency Network Analysis," was published by Springer in 2026 and he kindly presented me with a copy. It was nice to see one of my papers with Patrick Qiang cited therein.

We had a great discussion after his presentation and at lunch. Many thanks to the INFORMS Student Chapter for doing such a nice job in publicizing his presentation - the announcement even made the UMass Amherst homepage with special thanks to the Chapter President Samira Samadi.

And, after the delicious lunch at the UMass Commonwealth Restaurant, Dr. Servi was off to Logan Airport to catch a flight to DC for the INFORMS Analytics Conference, where I joined him on Sunday!

A Fabulous UMass Amherst INFORMS Party with Even Exchange Students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine

Yesterday, we had our UMass Amherst INFORMS party and, despite the very cold weather and that it is now the final exam period, it was fabulous!

As is our tradition, we brought hot Ukrainian food, including two types of varenyky (pierogies) and kovbasa (kielbasy),  plus many desserts. Thanks to the faculty that made it: Professor Senay Solak, the Chair of my department,  Professor Iqbal Ali, the former Cbair of my department, and Professor Hari Balasubramanian of the Riccio College of Engineering. Thanks to all the Chapter Officers who could attend: Josh Gladstone, Dana Hassani, Semih Boz, and Sindhoora Prakash. A special shoutout to the Chapter President Samira Samadi for her excellent work on the logistics for this lovely event marking the 2025 end of the semester and for bringing delicious Middle Eastern pastries. Catering was provided by award-winning UMass Dining.

Below is a collage of photos.

It was extra special to have 4 exchange students: Vaktoriia Baliuk, Oleksandra Horusieva, Karyna Lutsenko, and  Nataliia Pavelko from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), who have been studying at UMass Amherst, join us, as well as, Professor Nataliia Bychkova from Amherst College, who brought confections from Ukraine to share. The students, after completing their final exams, will be returning to Ukraine. We hope to welcome a new cohort for Spring 2026. This exchange program was made possible through a global partnership established between UMass Amherst and KSE shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022.

I am so grateful for this wonderful community and am honored to have served as the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since its inception in 2004.

Wishing everyone warmth, peace, pleasant adventures, and a lovely Holiday Season. Thank you for the support.

The Fall 2025 Supernetwork Center Newsletter is Now Online!

In the Fall 2026, we will be marking the 25th Anniversary of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, an incredible milestone, which we hope to celebrate in an appropriate fashion. Since Fall 2001, a historic time, I might add, I have had the honor and pleasure of serving as the Director of  the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, which I founded.

In order to keep our supporters and the public informed as to the Center's activities, we publish a newsletter, now in Fall and Spring editions.

I am delighted that the Fall 2025 edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, the newsletter of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management, has now been published.

The Fall 2025 newsletter, along with all previous ones, going back to Fall 2003, can be accessed on the following link: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

It has been a terrific couple of months, with outstanding conferences, significant recognition, as well as journal article acceptances and publications.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Holiday Season and a Great New 2026 Year!

Honored to Be Named a Fellow of The OR Society

The official good news arrived a few weeks ago and, this past week, I received the certificate.

I am humbled and thrilled to have been named a Fellow of the Operational Research (OR) Society,  which is based in the United Kingdom.

It has been quite an amazing year, thanks to both The OR Society and to another professional society that I am a member (long-time one) of - that of INFORMS.

On December 5, 2024, I delivered the Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society in London, thanks to The OR Society, and blogged about the magical experience here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

Below is a collage of photos to capture this truly memorable experience:

An article that I wrote about my  Blackett Lecture was published (and is feely accessible this year) in The OR Society flagship journal The Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706

And, just this past week, on the day before Thanksgiving, an article that I wrote with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Samirasadat Samadi, on tariffs, supply chain networks, and labor was published in JORS: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2592758

I am so grateful to outstanding professional societies for providing us with communities and support.

Thank you to The Or Society Fellows Committee, its Board, and to those who wrote letters of support for me!

Many thanks also to INFORMS for recognizing my work (and thanks to my students and collaborators) with the 2025 President's Award: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

Our work continues.

Wonderful Celebration of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter's Cum Laude Award and My INFORMS President's Award

Last Friday, we had a delightful celebration at the Isenberg School of Management of two awards received recently at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

Since I have been a Visiting Professor in Sweden, not only at KTH in Stockholm, but also over a multiyear period at the University of Gothenburg's School of Business, Economics and Law, I learned there the importance of celebrations! For example, at the latter, we would regularly meet, as a group, to enjoy a "fika" with delicious pastries, cakes, and coffee (and great conversations) to celebrate journal publications and other achievements.

Hence, the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter sent out invitations - and produced the nice poster below for the event last Friday.

This year's President, Samira Samadi (who is also my PhD student), ordered a fruit platter and various pastries plus coffee and the students surprised me with a Congratulations chocolate cake.

Earlier, I had blogged about my receipt of the INFORMS President's Award, an honor I am so deeply grateful for: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2025/10/deeply-honored-to-receive-informs.html and Samira wrote this lovely post on the Chapter Award received and my President's Award on the Chapter website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/2025/11/02/two-awards-one-incredible-2025-informs-annual-meeting-experience/

It was wonderful to celebrate the Chapter's receipt of the Cum Laude Award from INFORMS plus my President's Award and below are a few photos from the event. Many thanks to all who support us. 

Josh Gladstone is our chapter expert at cutting up cakes! Last year's Chapter President, Ismael Pour, is overseeing his progress in the photo above with Yongdong Chen providing support. 

The Memorial Tribute to the Great Hani Mahmassani at INFORMS

All those who had the pleasure of knowing Hani Mahmassani, who passed away on July 15, 2025 at the age of 69, will never forget him. He has left us with an incredible void, but lucky are we who were his friends, and/or his students,  and/or colleagues, or collaborators.

Many thanks to Yue Wang of the University of Arizona, who prepared this poster notice for the  Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society memorial tribute event in honor of Hani Mahmassani that took place last week at the INFORMS Conference in Atlanta.

The session began with a Zoom presentation by Roberto Roberti of Italy, this year's recipient of the Stella Dafermos Mid-Career Award, and then it was time for our panel, which was chaired by Karen Smilowitz of Northwestern University, a colleague of Hani's.

At the beginning, we gathered for a photo with Pat Mokhtarian, of Georgia Tech, who joined us. Pat was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, as Hani had been earlier.

Srinivas Peeta of Georgia Tech had prepared the nice collage poster of photos that some of us had also contributed to.

The talks were incredibly touching with Srinivas Peeta speaking about Hani, as his PhD advisor, and colleague, with numerous photos over the years of many luminaries in transportation science. He emphasized what a great researcher Hani was and also an outstanding organizer, integrator, and mentor. 

In my presentation, which is available here:  https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/Hani-Tribute-INFORMS-Nagurney.pdf, I included photos taken over many years of activities, including service ones, I had engaged in with Hani. So many memories came flooding back and I can hear his voice. Hani always inspired us to reach higher and to do more. He stretched us professionally and personally with his many kindnesses and support.

Marco Nie, a colleague of Hani's at Northwestern, had used ChatGPT for his presentation slides, and it was fascinating to see what was picked up by AI in terms of the contributions of Hani's research to transportation science, such as his work on bounded rationality and traffic assignment, and dynamic traffic network equilibrium.

Mike Hyland of UC Irvine, and a former PhD student of Hani's, spoke from the heart about how it was to work with Hani, who only slept a few hours a night. Hani was always willing to listen and to push the frontiers of transportation research and practice. He supervised over 75 PhD theses. 

We then took the group photo below. Thanks to all who were able to join us for this touching memorial session in honor of Hani Mahmassani. 

Thank you, Hani, for your friendship, scholarship, leadership, and for being a visionary.

For the In Memoriam, co-authored by Karen Smilowitz and Marco Nie, and published in the journal Transportation Science, see here: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/trsc.2025.memorial.v59.n6

The In Memoriam ends as follows: "In 1997, Hani wrote a tribute to Robert Herman in Transportation Science. He closed his tribute with the following words that ring so true to us as we remember Hani: “I will miss him, and so will many others, but will always know that I am a richer person for having known him.”"

Slide Decks of Our Talks at INFORMS in Atlanta Are Now Posted on Topics from War Risk Insurance to Tariffs and Rerouting to Remembering the Great Hani Mahmassani

My immediate research group had five presentations at the recent INFORMS Conference, which took place in Atlanta, October 26-29, 2025.

I am delighted that the slide decks of all the above presentations have now been posted on the Virtual Center for Supernetworks website: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals.html.

Below is a photo of the speakers and the organizers (thanks to Himadri Sen Gupta and Andrés González for the invitation) of the Resilient Networks session in which Ismael Pour, my PhD student, presented our paper on integrated crop and cargo war risk insurance with applications to Ukraine. This paper we co-authored with Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy and it was published in the International Transactions in Operational Research and is available free access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R

My PhD student, Samira Samadi, presented two papers (since I had to speak on a panel memorializing Hani Mahmassani, who passed away on July 15, 2025).

Samira's first paper presentation, which was on fresh produce quality deterioration under transportation congestion and disruptions, was on work we did with Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond. Her second paper, which we co-authored, was on tariffs and rerouting, and is in press in a volume in honor of Terry Rockafellar's 90th birthday: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032078599.

Dana Hassani delivered a paper of ours in the 8AM session on the last day of the conference. The paper, with Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), was published in an edited Dynamics of Disasters volume by Springer last December: https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/quantification-of-international-trade-network-performance-under-/50390576

I will blog about the panel in honor of Hani Mahmassani in a separate post but below I share a photo of the entire group that took part. Thanks to Karen Smilowitz and to the Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society of INFORMS for allowing us to memorialize Hani in a session originally scheduled for the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, who could not make it (Cynthia Barnhart of MIT was recognized this year). Hani was an earlier recipient of this award.

 

Deeply Honored to Receive the INFORMS President's Award

On the evening of October 26, 2025, the lovely INFORMS Awards Ceremony took place at its Annual Meeting in Atlanta.

I was deeply honored and humbled to be recognized with the INFORMS President's Award: 

I received the good news via a phone call from the 2025 INFORMS President David Hunt, and did not share the news publicly until INFORMS issued the press release below in October.

https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

The award ceremony was elegant and what made it extra special for me was to have, in the audience,  my PhD students (present and former ones), colleagues, friends, INFORMS staff, and also my husband. I am grateful to David Hunt and to Past Presidents Laura Albert and Julie Swan (both of whom served on the committee) for this very meaningful honor. I appreciate the leadership of the INFORMS Executive Director Elena Gerstmann. Pelin Pekgun was wonderful in making many warm announcements.

Below, I share a photo of the award plaque, which my husband kindly carried back to Amherst yesterday, and other photos. Many thanks to former President's Award recipient, Pinar Keskinocak, for sending me the photo of the two of us!

And INFORMS, so efficiently, put up the video recording of my award acceptance speech on its YouTube channel, which is very thoughtful and kind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=-2GAGCgnaGE I had had a rehearsal for my speech earlier that Sunday, which speaks to the professionalism of INFORMS!

Thank you, David Hunt, and thank you, INFORMS, for the support, the leadership, and also for the incredible community that is INFORMS! Let's continue to devote our efforts so that everyone can realize their full potential.

Looking Forward to the 2025 INFORMS Conference in Atlanta!

All five presentations are now done! The 2025 INFORMS  conference will definitely be a whirlwind conference. It will take place October 26 -29, 2025. I am so looking forward to the talks, the social events, serendipitous encounters, the exhibits, and the various business meetings and special luncheons.

Detailed information on the conference is available here:https://meetings.informs.org/wordpress/annual/

Three of my PhD students will be coming - Ismael Pour, Samira Samadi, and Dana Hassani. 

Ismael will present our latest paper on integrated crop and cargo war risk insurance, co-authored with Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy, which was recently published in the January 2026 issue of the International Transaction in Operational Research, and is available free access: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R. 

I will speak on the panel in honor of Hani Mahmassani, who passed away on July 15, 2025. The panel is chaired by Karen Smilowitz, the Editor of Transportation Science and fellow panelists are: Srinivas Peeta, Michael Hyland, and Marco Nie. The panel will be a moving tribute to a leading scholar, educator, mentor, and friend, who is deeply missed.

Samira will present two of our papers (because my schedule is loaded with many meetings and conference events) - a paper, co-authored with Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond on a continuing passion of ours - impact on fresh produce quality of various supply chain disruptions - and the  paper, "Multicommodity Trade, Tariffs, and Rerouting," that is forthcoming in a very special edited volume: Convex and Variational Analysis with Applications: In Honor of Terry Rockafellar’s 90th Birthday, with Themistocles M. Rassias and Panos M. Pardalos as Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG; see: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032078599

Dana will present a paper of ours that was also recently published: "Quantification of International Trade Network Performance Under Disruptions to Supply, Transportation, and Demand Capacity, and Exchange Rates in Disasters." This paper was co-authored with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE): Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev and appears in: Dynamics of Disasters- From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity, Ilias S. Kotsireas, Anna Nagurney, Panos M. Pardalos, Stephan Pickl, Chrysafis Vogiatzis, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG; see:https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0#toc

And on the first evening of the conference, I will receive the INFORMS President's Award, for which I am deeply grateful and very honored:  https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

Excellent INFORMS Tune-Up Event Hosted by the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter!

Yesterday, the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter held its annual INFORMS Tune-Up event at which PhD students, who are chapter members, practice the presentations that they will give at the upcoming INFORMS Annual Meeting. This year, the conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, October 26-29, 2025. The website for the conference is here: https://www.informs.org/Meetings-Conferences/INFORMS-Conference-Calendar/2025-INFORMS-Annual-Meeting

The presenters and their titles are on the poster below.

It was great to have speakers from the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department (MIE) at UMass Amherst as well as from the Operations and Information Management (OIM) Department.

I very much enjoyed all the talks. Ali Jafari and Yukti Kathuria are from MIE and Samira Samadi, Ismael Pour, and Dana Hassani are from the OM side of OIM. The latter three are also my PhD students.

The audience included faculty and students and valuable comments and suggestions were given on the presentations and there were also great questions. It was an excellent practice session.

The presentations by Ali and Yukti focused on on unsupervised learning approaches and Bayesian networks to healthcare, respectively, and those by Samira, Ismael, and Dana were on food quality under trade disruptions, integrated crop and cargo war risk insurance, and the quantification of international trade network performance, respectively.

Samira's presentation was based on  a paper that we co-authored with Professor Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond.

Ismael's paper was based on a paper that we co-authored with Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy and which is the lead article in the January (2026) issue of the International Transactions in Operational Research. It is available for free here: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/itor.70038?af=R

Dana's paper, in turn, was also co-authored with me, and with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev. The paper was published in the latest Dynamics of Disasters  (2024) co-edited volume: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0_7

Special thanks to faculty: Professor Peter Haas of the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, UMass Amherst, Professor Hari Balasubramanian of MIE,  and Professor Zihao Qu of OIM for taking the time to support the students and offering their suggestions. 

I took the nice photo below:

The pizza, fresh fruit, and coffee were delicious.

This student chapter will be recognized at the INFORMS Atlanta conference with the Cum Laude Award on October 27. We will have a nice group there to receive the award and to also celebrate!

I have been the chapter's Faculty Advisor since its inception in 2004 and have very much enjoyed seeing how the students have grown professionally and socially. I stay in touch with many once they receive their PhDs and go on to careers either in academia or industry!

Kudos to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter!

It is hard to believe that the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter was founded in 2004! I have been lucky to have served as its Faculty Advisor from its very inception and have seen so many of our wonderful student members graduate and excel professionally, whether as academics or practitioners. We have built an extraordinary community of students (and also faculty) that are advocates for, users of, and appliers of Operations Research (OR) and the Management Sciences (MS) and Analytics, working on making the world a better place.

The members come from the Isenberg School of Management, the College of Engineering, and the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst but all students, who are interested in OR/MS and Analytics, are welcome. Typically, the student members are PhD students but we have also had undergraduate students as members. Our invited seminars are advertised at UMass Amherst and are also open to the public.

On August 15, 2025, even though it was the summer still, we celebrated outstanding 2024-2025 officers and members with a special event. I presented award certificates in the beautiful Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management to Officers: Ismael M. Pour, Samira Samadi, Semih Boz, Josh Gladstone, G. Busra Karkili, Yukti Kathuria, Sindhoora Prakash, Parisa Lotfibagha, and Mohammad Derakhshi and to Members: Yongdong Chen and Dana Hassani and thanked them for their service! Thanks also to faculty: Professors Arzum Akkas and Chaitra Gopalappa, who were able to join us. The pizza and salads provided by University of Massachusetts Amherst Dining were delicious as was the chocolate cake from Whole Foods. PhD students are so important to the intellectual life of a university. 

It is an honor to serve as this INFORMS Chapter's Faculty Advisor. Looking forward to another exciting academic year with chapter activities. Many thanks to all who support us! Additional photos and information on the Chapter activities can be found on its website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Celebrated the End of the Semester with a Great Party and Congratulations Cake

Yesterday, during the next to the final week of classes in the 2024-2025 academic year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we had our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party. This is a tradition of this wonderful student chapter that brings both students and faculty together who work in the areas of Operations Research and the Management Sciences.

It has been a very busy week, with many additional events, that I even blogged about, including the 2025 OIM Awards Celebration just the evening before. And, yesterday morning, for the first time ever, the OIM Department Chair Professor Senay Solak organized a retreat for the department.

I left the retreat early, since, as is also the tradition, my husband and I always bring warm varenyky/pierogies, kielbasa, and desserts.

Some faculty mistakenly thought the party was at 4PM, although the poster circulated stated that the start time was 4:30PM. We appreciate the enthusiasm.

There was a kerfuffle - with all the events happening now at UMass Amherst, because of the end of the academic year, the order for food that the Chapter President Ismael Pour (one of my PhD students) put in got cancelled in the last minute. He scrambled then to get food orders from Atkins and from the famous Antonio's Pizza in downtown Amherst.

The food spread was fantastic and took up two large tables in Room N135 in the Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management. Besides the Ukrainian food and the pizza, there were veggie and fruit trays, cold cuts and cheeses, and different types of sandwiches.

Josh Gladstone did a great job slicing the Congratulations cake. 

We brought both potato cheese varenyky and cabbage varenyky and the cake with Congratulations on it we bought at Whole Foods, along with a wide assortment of cookies. There were also various desserts from Atkins and even a spread of baklava pastries from Stop and Shop. It was appropriate to celebrate with a Congratulations cake since this chapter, in October, received the Magna Cum Laude Award from INFORMS at the Seattle Annual Meeting. Also, several of our PhD student members: Semih Boz, Dana Hassani (last year's Chapter President), Ismael Pour, and Samira Samadi have had journal articles published this past year and others are in press!

We have hosted a variety of events and speakers this past academic year. We were delighted that Lorraine Martinelle, of the Isenberg Marcomm Department, wrote an excellent article on our events associated with a panel with the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) exchange students and the visit and talk of the KSE President Tymofiy Mylovanov from Ukraine:  https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/news/three-years-later-isenberg-reflects-umass-amherst-partnership-ukrainian-institution Two of the exchange students, Marharyta Nechytailo and Karyna Lutsenko, joined our party. Also, it was wonderful to see Dr. Natalia Bychkova from Ukraine, who has been teaching at Amherst College.

The student chapter aims to enhance networking, share scientific knowledge through seminars, and also to build community. The students also present their research in a tune-up before the INFORMS Annual Meeting each year. Lasting friendships are made (and even a few marriages) through the chapter. Its members come not only from the Isenberg School but also from the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and from the Manning College of  Information and Computer Sciences.

I have been the Faculty Advisor of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since 2004.

To learn more about the Chapter, its Officers, and its activities, please, visit its website: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/

Fascinating Presentation on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for Disaster Risk Reduction

This past Friday, we had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Marta Vicarelli, who spoke in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series. Her presentation at the Isenberg School of Management was fascinating. In this Speaker Series, we highlight thought leaders who are breaking barriers and boundaries.

With University of Massachusetts Amherst emphasizing sustainability, this presentation could not have been more timely. The topics discussed included biodiversity loss, and mitigation and adaptation as responses to climate change. Dr. Vicarelli structured her seminar in a very engaging way asking whether 

1. Are NBS effective in increasing resilience and 

2. Are they cost-effective? 

Dr. Vicarelli is a leader in NBS and shared with us many highlights of her important studies. There were many questions from the audience. It was clear that NBS can be powerful mechanisms for disaster risk reduction. We could have listened for hours! The lunch afterwards at The Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst was lovely and our conversations continued. Below is a collage of photos from the event, along with the poster, which was kindly designed by Ismael Pour, who is the UMass Amherst INFORMS Chapter President this year. It was great to have faculty from my OIM Department take part and also many of the Chapter Officers!

Some Recent Coverage of Our Research in the Media

Next Monday, President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term in office. We can expect a quite dynamic, volatile period. I believe that the research that we have been doing will be extremely relevant from the modeling of tariffs and other policy instruments, such as quotas, and their impacts on a variety of product supply chains, to start.

I am gearing up for media inquiries and believe that, as an educator, it is very important to respond and to inform the public.

In the past few weeks, during the winter break at the University of Massachusetts, I have not only been getting ready for the spring semester and have also been writing papers, but, in addition, I've had several interviews and press releases on our work.

I am very pleased that the professional society of INFORMS issued a press release on our recent paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime,"  published in Transportation Science. This paper I co-authored with my PhD student Dana Hassani and with Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues: Oleg Nivievskyi, and Pavlo Martyshev. The press release is available here: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/News-Releases/New-Study-Shows-How-Ukraine-War-Impacts-Global-Food-Supply-Chain-Urges-Alternative-Routes-for-Grains. Many thanks to Ashley Smith of INFORMS for this excellent writeup!

Also, UMass Amherst released this press announcement https://www.umass.edu/news/article/anna-nagurney-co-edits-new-book-disaster-management-research on my latest book, Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity, co-edited with colleagues: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Sten Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis and published by Springer Nature in late December. This book is extremely timely and contains 10 refereed chapters plus a preface. 

Recently, I was on Talk The Talk on WHMP to speak with Bill Newman and Bud Eisenberg on Trump, Tariffs and Tradeoffs: https://soundcloud.com/whmp/umass-isenberg-school-prof?in=whmp/sets/on-ice

We had such a lively discussion that they have asked me to come back after the inauguration.

And, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Janet Nguyen of Marketplace for her article, "Do blood donation centers sell your blood?" https://www.marketplace.org/2025/01/10/do-blood-donation-centers-sell-your-blood/ My research group has written many studies on blood supply chains and my article in The Conversation,  published shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic, helped to influence national policy on blood donations; see: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2023/12/honored-to-have-played-part-in.html

In late December I was interviewed for this deeply researched article on sanctions on Russia and chemicals published by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-billionaires-whose-chemical-factories-fuel-russias-war-machine-2024-12-30/

And, not long before that, I was interviewed for this article in The New York Times on how Trump's tariffs would deal a big blow to the auto industry: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/business/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada-cars.html

Stay tuned! Interesting times await us!

Congratulations and Kudos for 2024

2024  was truly a remarkable year, despite challenges.

On December 5, 2024, I was deeply honored to present the Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society in London, England, thanks to the OR Society. It was an incredible event and I thank the OR Society President Dr. Gilbert Owusu for the warm introduction and for his great moderation of the Q&A following my lecture. It was extra special to have my husband, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey and Associate Dean Bill Brown in attendance, as well as Diane Isenberg and Center Associate Dr. Stavros Siokos. Thanks to all who attended. The reception and dinner were fabulous and the OR Society has kindly posted a recoding of my Blackett Lecture on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LsIEsi-m0

And, in late December 2024, our latest Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity volume was published by Springer Nature!  The book is a collection of 10 refereed chapters. I was delighted to work with my fellow Co-Editors: Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Stefan Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis on this volume. It is based on papers, and, also, invited ones, that were presented at our Dynamics of Disasters conference in Piraeus, Greece, in July 2023. Full information about the book can be found here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0 I'd like to take the opportunity to also thank the reviewers of the chapters. It was special to have a paper, co-authored with my Isenberg School PhD student Dana Hassani and with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev published in this volume:  https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-74006-0_7.

And, speaking of Ukraine, I continued to serve as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of KSE and on its International Academic Board, with many meetings, and important issues requiring thoughtful and intense decision-making. I was thrilled to have the University of Massachusetts Amherst announce the second cohort of Virtual Scholars, based in Ukraine, thanks to our great partnership. All ten of the Virtual Scholars have been matched with faculty at the Isenberg School of Management.  I am honored to be working with three of them - Professor Myroslava Kushnir at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv,  Professor Borys Kormych at the Odesa Law Academy, and with Dr. Pavlo Martyshev of KSE, who was also part of our first cohort, as were Myroslava and Borys.  The Office of Global Affairs, led by Dr. Kalpen Trivedi, issued this nice press release: https://www.umass.edu/global-affairs/news/kyiv-school-economics-and-university-massachusetts-amherst-launch-second-round-virtual-scholar. Also, as part of this partnership, in Fall 2024, we had 5 exchange students from KSE studying at UMass Amherst and in the Spring 2025 semester we will have 4 staying on.

This was an amazing year for conferences with the 70th birthday conference in honor of Professor Panos Pardalos taking place in mid June in beautiful Halkidiki, Greece, with presentations by Center Associate Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney and me on joint work with Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford and my PhD student Ismael Pour. Both the EURO conference in Copenhagen this summer and the INFORMS conference in Seattle this past fall served as outstanding venues for many Center Associates to present their research. At the EURO conference, Center Associates: Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economic and Business, Professor Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, and Professor Sara Saberi of WPI as well as Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and I, all took part. At the INFORMS conference, Center Associate Dmytro Matyspura, who had traveled all the way from the University of Sydney, was busy with editorial board meetings and recruiting, and we got together also with Center Associates Professor Pritha Dutta of Willamette University and Professor Ke "Grace" Ke of Central Washington University. Another highlight was to have two of my PhD students, Ismael Pour and Samira Samadi, who joined us as new Doctoral Student Center Associates, present for the first time at an INFORMS conference in Seattle. Dana Hassani also presented. And, our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter received the Magna Cum Laude award from INFORMS in Seattle. Hard to believe that I have served as the Chapter's Faculty Advisor since 2004. Many of the officers and members celebrated with us at the award ceremony.  Info on the chapter and its activities can be found here: https://websites.umass.edu/umassinf/. Ismael Pour is this year's Chapter President and Dana Hassani was last year's Chapter President.

This was a very busy year for seminar presentations, including at MIT and at the University of Maryland, and other presentations. I very much enjoyed giving a keynote at the Supply Chain Resilience SCRIPS Workshop in Washington DC in early October: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-supply-chain-resilience-scrips.html

We have been busy responding to numerous interview requests, including from Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, AlJazeera, because of our expertise on supply chain networks. For some of the coverage by the media, see: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/media/media.htm

For our recent journal articles, please visit the Supernetwork Center website:

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/dart.html

For photos of many events that we were engaged in, please, see:

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/cfoto/centerphotos.html

For additional news and updates, please, see the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 Supernetwork Sentinel 

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

Hoping for a 2025 New Year filled with peace, great research, conferences, and professional activities, robust health, and prosperity. Thank you for the support!

Many Thanks to the INFORMS History & Traditions Committee and to Its Chair

At the recent INFORMS Annual Meeting, which took place in Seattle, WA, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel on: What Does Our Past Tell Us About Our Future, with esteemed colleagues: Linus Schrage of the University of Chicago and Tom Magnanti of MIT. Christopher Ryan of the University of British Columbia served as the moderator.

I had done a lot of research for my presentation and have now posted it. In my presentation, I emphasized how important it is to also include herstories and to feature female operations researchers both for historical purposes and also to inspire younger generations. 

The INFORMS History & Traditions website includes "profiles of more than 230 historic individuals as well as the historic institutions, methodologies and application areas with which they are associated." There is a Committee (I had served for several years on it) that meets regularly and suggests additions to this website and tracks its correctness, etc. 

I was very touched and very honored to have been contacted before our panel took place by Linus Schrage, the Chair of the INFORMS History & Traditions Committee, saying that I should be included on this website.  He worked in securing a writer for my biography and went back and forth with me to make sure that everything had my approval.

Above is a photo of the names on the M-N page and I marvel to be on this list with many that I have cited and some I have even enjoyed conversations with! All the biographies can be accessed here. I am only the 5th female to be thus recognized, and this tribute will make me work even harder and mentor students, collaborators, and others who reach out to me.

My biography, thanks to the INFORMS History & Traditions Committee, can be directly accessed here.

Beautiful that my biography page also includes a link to the interview with me conducted by Anand Subramanian for his outstanding Subject_to series on Youtube.

The Outstanding INFORMS Conference in Seattle!

Last week I had the pleasure of taking part in the INFORMS conference in Seattle, which took place October 20 through October 23. It was a whirlwind conference since my research group had 5 presentations. I gave an invited talk on a paper on defense critical supply chain networks and labor, which was recently published in the Handbook of Management of Threats. Thanks to Shima Mohebbi for inviting me to speak in her game theory session. My 3 PhD students also presented papers. Dana Hassani spoke on our recent paper, now published online in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science, and co-authored with Kyiv School of Economics colleagues Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavlo Martyshev. Samira Samadi spoke on our work with my PhD student Ismael Pour on spatial price equilibrium models with commodity losses. And two days after her presentation in Seattle, the paper was published! Ismael delivered a paper co-authored with Ladimer S. Nagurney and me on a spatial price network equilibrium paradox. For both Samira and Ismael it was their first INFORMS conference!

The panel that I spoke on was a "Committee's Choice" one and it was a great honor to join fellow panelists Tom Magnanti and Linus Schrage, both of whom need no introductions. Chris Ryan was an excellent moderator.  The panel was on What Our Past Can Tell Us About Our Future. I took the perspective of Herstory.

There were editorial board meetings for several journals that I serve as an Associate Editor of  (Journal of Global Optimization and Optimization Letters plus the International Transactions in Operational Research)  - it was great to see fellow editorial board members.

Another highlight was having my Labor and Supply Chain Networks book and the Handbook for the Management of Threats displayed at the Springer booth at the Exhibit Hall.

I thoroughly enjoyed talks and  the INFORMS Fellows lunch. 3 of my nominees got elected this year and there were 12 Fellows, so it was extra special to celebrate with them - Hani S. Mahmassani, Celso Ribeiro, and Grazia Speranza. I also very much enjoyed the WORMS lunch.

Several former PhD students, who are successful professors now, joined me: Pritha Dutta and Grace Ke, and Dmytro Matsypura, who traveled all the way from Sydney, Australia. It was delightful to also see Patrick Qiang.

It was terrific to have the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter recognized with the Magna Cum Laude Award.

The below collage of photos captures some of the highlights.

INFORMS organized so many additional meetings and networking events at this conference, which I also appreciated. We were kept very busy but the conference was very enjoyable with over 7,300 registrants from around the globe! More info on this conference.

Some Tips on Networking - Terrific EURO WISDOM Panel in Copenhagen

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a Networking panel at the start of the EURO 2024 Conference in Copenhagen. The panel was organized by Paula Carroll and Annunziata Esposito Amideo. Joining me on the panel was life coach Margaret Collins. The panel attracted an excellent audience, very enthusiastic and energetic.

The WISDOM Forum aims "to provide a platform to support, empower and encourage the participation of all genders in Operational Research within EURO." It is very active in organizing events, engaging in social media and has various terrific initiatives; more info on its website. Other related such forums include the WORMS forum of the professional society of INFORMS.

What we emphasized on the panel included the following:

1. The importance of networking.

2. Strategies for developing networks of visibility.

3. Communication skills to deliver your message.

4. How to deal with nerves or anxiety.

As an academic, who also has worked in high tech consulting in the defense sector, I noted the importance of being engaged with practice and the serendipity of meeting people and expanding your network, whether at conferences (a fabulous venue for networking) or even during travel, such as on planes. I spoke about reaching out to researchers that I admired, early on, in order to gather their wisdom and professional advice. I shared that George Dantzig, one of the founders of the field of OR, came to the first conference presentation that I ever gave, which was at the Mathematical Programming Symposium at MIT, and the kind words that he shared. I also acknowledged my PhD dissertation advisor, the late Stella Dafermos, in my presentation. I was her first PhD student. I showed the audience my academic genealogy, which includes Maxwell, Newton, and Galileo!

On our panel, the importance of social media was emphasized, which can create opportunities and invitations, and in keeping your profile up to date. In addition. Margaret, through her nicely interactive presentation, told the audience to have prepared a short introduction of yourself (perhaps several). One should also think about whom you might network with. Different people have distinct comfort zones, and it is important to acknowledge that some may be introverts or extroverts, or somewhere in between.

I focused on networking as your career progresses.

My presentation can be downloaded here. Early in one's career, one networks laterally and up, and it is important as one's career progresses to mentor and support others. Taking risks is also important since new experiences can help one to grow both personally and professionally. I also spoke about networking with journalists and decision-makers in order to have one's research make a greater impact. I emphasized the relevance of writing Letters to the Editor and OpEds to broaden one's reach.

Ultimately, networking is about people, and professional societies are playing a big role in bringing us together, through conferences, newsletters, opportunities for leadership, and various means of support and enhanced visibility.

Many thanks to the organizers of the EURO 2024 conference for the lovely city location venue of Copenhagen. More info on the conference here.

Also, early in my presentation, I congratulated both Paula and Annunziata on the publication of their discussion paper (the inaugural one): "Gender equality: opportunities and challenges for the OR community,"  in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. Their paper is now trending, along with the set of invited commentaries, which I contributed one to. These publications are open access and are very informative and relevant.   Relationships matter and networks do as well.

Congratulations to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and to its Officers!

The end of the academic year is filled with all sorts of celebratory events as well as award ceremonies. 

The academic life is intense but extremely rewarding.

I have served as the Faculty Advisor of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter since its founding in 2004 and next Fall we hope to mark its big 20th Anniversary! This Chapter is an outstanding collaboration between the Isenberg School of Management and the College of Engineering.

This past Thursday evening, after the classes were over with at UMass Amherst, we hosted the end of the semester party at the Isenberg School of Management.

The students did a great job, under the leadership of this year's Chapter President, my PhD student, Dana Hassani, in organizing the event, which included ordering food from award-winning UMass Dining and Catering.

Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney and I brought several types of varenyky / pierogies (warm and buttered) and Polish sausages plus delicious Italian and Polish cookies.

Attendance of faculty and students was outstanding at this party, which demonstrates the warm and inclusive community that we have built at UMass Amherst of operations researchers!

At this party, we recognized both this year's and last year's incredible Chapter Officers with Outstanding Award Certificates that were framed. The Chapter has accomplished so much in terms of hosting speakers, leaders, and even panels plus their role in building community through social events, such as this party, are so very much appreciated.

Congratulations to the Chapter Officers, who received their Outstanding Service Awards and were able to attend: Dana Hassani, Ogechi Vivian Nwadiaru, Samirasadat Samadi, Paola Furlanetto, Sindhoora Prakash, Yukti Kathuria, G. Busra Karkili, and Ismael Pour. Yiwen Wang, Josh Gladstone, and Semih Boz were also recognized for their great service to this INFORMS Student Chapter. 

Service as a Chapter Officer builds many skills, including leadership. And, for those students (many of the members are PhD students) who enter academia after receiving their doctorates, service activities are important, along with excelling at research and teaching. Universities run on those three "pillars."

Thanks to all the faculty: Professors Arzum Akkas, Bogdan Prokopovych, Ahmed Ghoniem, Agha Iqbal Ali, Erin Baker, Hari Balasubramanian, and Chaitra Gopalappa that were able to join us for the party. Thanks also to Professors Senay Solak, Peter Haas, and Ana Muriel for their terrific engagement with our students and chapter activities!  It was extra special that two of the exchange students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine: Asta Motrenko and Marharyta Nechytailo came and enjoyed the varenyky and the warm conversations very much. You can read here about a panel that they spoke at which was organized by this Chapter with support also provided by the International Programs Office.

I am very grateful to Dean Anne P. Massey and to Vice Provost Kalpen Trivedi for their superb support of our students.

On the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter website you can find information about the chapter as well as news items and many photos.

Some Highlights of the 2023 INFORMS Conference in Phoenix

It is truly extraordinary that this year's INFORMS Annual Meeting attracted over 6,000 delegates to Phoenix. The conference took place October 15-28, 2023 and convened operations researchers and analytics professionals from academia, practice and government. All continents except for Antarctica were represented and the INFORMS President Laura Albert remarked that, next year, perhaps even someone from that continent will join us.

To me, INFORMS is about the people/members, and I especially delighted in seeing several of my former PhD students, who are now thriving as professors at various universities (Dmytro Matsypura at the University of Sydney in Australia, Deniz Besik at the University of Richmond, Shivani Shukla at the University of San Francisco and Sara Saberi at WPI) and having one of my PhD students (Dana Hassani) present at his first such conference the paper that we co-authored with Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) colleagues in Ukraine. It was published in the Journal of Global Optimization as the lead article in an issue and was on display at the Springer booth in the Exhibit Hall. We got to keep the stunning Journal of Global Optimization issue. It was also very special to see both my Labor and Supply Chain Networks book, published in 2023, and the Dynamics of Disasters book that I co-edited with Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos and Arsenios Tsokas on display at the Springer booth. Lovely to chat with Pardalos, his wife and son in Phoenix!

Seeing colleagues for the first time in person was also extra special since, in the pandemic, new connections were made virtually but only recently have the travel and the face to face exchanges become possible (and are so very welcome). The technical sessions and plenary and keynote talks were excellent and not all could be attended because quite a few took place "in parallel."

I thoroughly enjoyed various board meetings, including that of the INFORMS Magazine Editorial Advisory Board with Kara Tucker and committee members at 8AM on Sunday morning, as well as the Editorial Board meeting of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), led by its Editor, Celso C. Ribeiro. The Editorial Board meeting of the Journal of Global Optimization, whose Editor is Sergiy Butenko, was also very enjoyable and the food was excellent - thank you, Springer, the publisher!

It was an honor to present an invited paper and also to speak on two panels: one on optimization and community resilience and the other one - Meet the ITOR Editors! Thanks to Professor Nazanin Tajik of Mississippi State University for inviting me to speak in her session. I was so honored to even receive a gift and special note from her in appreciation. My presentation on defense critical supply chains and risk management can be viewed here. Our other presentations are posted also on the Supernetworks Center site. The resilience panel did not have panelists' slides but it was so good that it went way over and I missed the WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences) lunch! Thanks to Himadri Sen Gupta of the University of Oklahoma for organizing this panel and to his PhD advisor - Andres Gonzalez!

The business meetings were very well-attended and I especially enjoyed the Transportation Science & Logistics Society business meeting at which Hani S. Mahmassani received the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science.

The INFORMS Fellows luncheon at which the newly inducted Fellows were recognized was deeply engaging and pleasant. It was an honor to share a table with Roman Slowinski, who traveled with his wife from Poznan, Poland, and well as other colleagues, including Ben Lev and Candi Yano!

It was delightful to meet new colleagues and to reconnect with many others. I wish that I could list everyone that made this conference so memorable for me - you remain in my pleasant memories - thank you.

Congratulations to all who received awards! Extra proud that our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter was recognized with the INFORMS Magna Cum Laude Award.

Below is a collage constructed as a remembrance of some of the highlights. Many thanks to the organizers and to all those who took part.