Road Warrior and Road Scholar

My suitcase is packed and, after teaching my Logistics & Transportation class this morning, I will be heading off to the airport. Today I will have a two-legged flight from Bradley airport to Dallas / Fort Worth and then onward to College Station where Texas A&M University is located.

The definition of road warrior is, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: a person who travels a lot especially as part of his or her job. Of course, as an academic, my mode of transportation, whether to conferences or to give invited talks, is frequently by plane.

Last night, I had some concerns since I was having a difficult time printing my boarding passes on the America Airlines website and,  after contacting colleagues at Texas A&M,  was told that they had not experienced this problem before. Well, after paying about $100 extra on a ticket whose price I do not want to reveal (ouch) I managed to get seats and print out my boarding pass.

Now you may wonder, why would I journey so far to give a talk and then come back past midnight tomorrow?!

The Texas A&M INFORMS Student Chapter invited me so I have to support this award-winning student chapter (congrats on the Summa Cum Laude Award from INFORMS this year) plus I have never been to this university campus and have quite a few colleagues there that I very much respect.

Moreover, since I teach courses in Logistics & Transportation and related subjects I am also a Road Scholar (not to be confused with the freight company of the same name -- great name).

The students have prepared a great itinerary for me so I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone there.

My presentation tomorrow will be on "Networks Against Time: From Food to Pharma," and this evening (it will be late for me given the time difference) I will be dining in Texas. I am being sponsored in part, also by the great INFORMS Speakers Program.

The last time that I gave an invited talk in Texas (not counting conferences) was when I spoke at SMU upon the invitation of the Dallas/Fort Worth INFORMS Chapter and I made it just in time for my evening talk! 

Soon I will be saying "Howdy!"

Interestingly, The New York Times the other day had an article on Texas A&M (TAMU) starting a new campus in Israel and it has the full support of Governor Rick Perry of Texas and the Chancellor of Texas A&M, John Sharp. They were room-mates back at TAMU!

I guess one can get a lot accomplished with such close connections.
 

Meet a UMass PhD Alum Event at the Isenberg School on November 2 and Poster

Yes, today, UMass Amherst is closed and we are hunkering down for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. Since we still have power and I hope that this good fortune continues, we can still accomplish some work.

We are delighted that Dr. Benneyan, who received his PhD in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering from UMass Amherst, will be speaking at the Isenberg School of Management this Friday in Room 106 at 2PM. Dr. Benneyan's PhD advisor was Dr. Larry Seiford, who is an INFORMS Fellow, and had served at NSF and is now at the University of Michigan.

Professor Benneyan  is a Professor at Northeastern University and his talk is being hosted by the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which I have served as the Faculty Advisor of, for over 8 years.

The students prepared the nice poster below. If you click on the image you can enlarge it.

Also, immediately after Professor Benneyan's presentation on Healthcare Systems Engineering, we will be celebrating the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter's receipt of the magna cum laude award from INFORMS. This is the sixth award that our chapter has received from our parent society in as many years!

Professor Benneyan is sponsored, in part, by the INFORMS Speakers Program, which I have chaired for the past two years.

In the meantime, all in the Northeast of the US, please stay safe and take care with Hurricane irene.

Fabulous New Speakers Added to Our INFORMS Speakers Program!

This year, I have the pleasure of chairing the INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Speakers Program. Professor Tim Lowe of the University of Iowa and Dr. Les Servi of MITRE are my committee members.

Not only has the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, that I serve as the Faculty Advisor for, availed itself of some of the wonderful speakers in this program (Professor John Birge and Professor Sheldon Jacobson, only to start) but I have also given talks through this program, since I am on the list of speakers.

I'll never forget the talk that I gave at the Dallas/Fort Worth INFORMS Chapter, with the meeting taking place at SMU, at which I arrived, after 11 hours of travel, with only 10 minutes to spare. The discussions that followed after my talk were terrific and I especially enjoyed having industry reps as well as academics and students take part. It was a wonderful experience. I have also given a talk at the Boston INFORMS Chapter (with my great host being Dr. Les Servi from Mitre), and at universities, including the University of Pittsburgh, through this special program.

Instructions as to how to request a speaker can be found on the INFORMS Speakers Program homepage. The interest this year in our program has been great from both companies and universities, especially with our energized focus on analytics.

Now, for the drumroll, I am delighted to announce that the new additions to our Speakers Program are:

Professor Aruna Apte of the Naval Postgraduate School

Professor Margaret Brandeau of Stanford University

Professor Ann Campbell of the University of Iowa

Dr. Brenda Dietrich of IBM

Dr. Radhika Kulkarni of SAS

Dr. Les Servi of MITRE

Professor Alice Smith of Auburn University

Professor Mike Trick of Carnegie Mellon University.


INFORMS will be updating information over the next couple of weeks on the Speakers Program website, so please continue to check back.

In the meantime, please feel free to contact either Barry List, the Director of Communications at INFORMS, or me, if you have any questions.

The INFORMS Speakers Program and Social and Professional Networking

Wow -- now that was a great talk! I have heard such a comment after numerous speaker presentations organized through our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. Many, from faculty to students to practitioners, over the years, have commented that these talks, which we schedule on Fridays, with lunch and further discussions to follow, were the highlights of their week.

In organizing a semester's worth of talks, we looked for speakers who could inform and educate a wide audience on timely topics of interest to the operations research / management science community.

We also availed ourselves of the INFORMS Speakers Program and I personally have greatly enjoyed being a speaker in this program, and have given talks in Dallas, Pittsburgh, and other locations, as a result of it. I especially enjoyed the mix of the audience participants from various industries and universities and the wonderful questions and hospitality of the INFORMS Regional and Student Chapters that have been my hosts. My professional and social networks have also grown from participation in this valuable program.

This year I have the pleasure of chairing the INFORMS Speakers Program Committee, with committee members: Dr. Tim Lowe of the University of Iowa and Dr. Les Servi of MITRE. We are working on enhancing this program by adding new speakers and expanding the program geographically and making it more diverse. We also hope to include more video resources and to enable speakers to edit their profiles.

Do stay tuned as we expand this valuable and exciting resource. The next issue of OR/MS Today coming out in August will include a profile of the INFORMS Speakers Program and some of the advantages of using a speaker through the program.

As for tips on how to run a successful speakers series, read more here.

I leave you with some photos above of several distinguished speakers who have graced our Speaker Series at UMass Amherst who are part of the INFORMS Speakers Program. I am sure that you can recognize them but, just to make sure, the above photos are of the visits of Professor Richard Larson of MIT, of Professor John Birge of the University of Chicago, and of Professor Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign.

Thanks to all the speakers in our profession who take the time out of their very busy schedules to come and speak on our campuses and at other sites -- from corporations and beyond!

Analytics and Operations Research -- Learning from One Another

As professionals in our data-driven economy, our methodological tool sets and applications continue to expand and to evolve and we continue to create new synergies through collaborations and partnerships.

I was recently invited to keynote the 2011 PAKDD Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Conference in Shenzhen, China, which took place, May 24-27, 2011. At first, I responded that I do not do research in data mining, but when the organizers persisted and said that the audience can learn from me, I agreed. I also thought that it would be a great forum in which to discuss some of the research that my group was involved in. After I provided a list of possible topics, the organizers selected: Supernetworks: Opportunities and Challenges for Decision-Making in the 21st Century, and it can be accessed and viewed here.

This experience further reinforced the importance of learning from one another, as noted by the PAKDD conference organizers, and, indeed, one of the most effective means in stimulating interest in a topic (and learning) is through speakers and their talks.

For example, at UMass Amherst, through our INFORMS Student Chapter, we have hosted numerous speakers from academia, industry, and government, and across disciplines, who have spoken on timely topics, all with an analytics theme. Computer Scientists march across our campus to attend, even in the winter, and folks have traveled from Vermont, Boston, and even New Jersey to hear our speakers. At times, we have been overwhelmed by the attention, especially when news and TV crews show up.

Now, I have the honor of chairing the INFORMS Speakers Program, with Dr. Tim Lowe and Dr. Les Servi assisting me. An article on this program that also highlights some of the new initiatives should be appearing in the next issue of Analytics.

By learning from one another and doing the best work possible is how we will move Analytics and Operations Research forward and have a great time, as well!