Kleber-Gery lecture, St. Olaf College, Rube Goldberg, and Jesse James

I returned from Northfield, Minnesota last evening. I had been at St. Olaf College since Wednesday and Thursday night at 8PM I gave the Kleber-Gery lecture. Posters for my lecture entitled, "Synergies and Vulnerabilities of Supply Chain Networks in a Global Economy: What We Can Learn from Half a Century of Advances in Transportation," were hanging throughout several of the buildings. My talk took place in the Regents Hall of Science, which is a spectacular building that opened up this past Fall. It is already garnering much attention for its design and environmental friendliness. This lecture was endowed by a former student at St. Olaf, Jeff Brown, who enjoyed both mathematics and economics. Professor Kleber attended my lecture, which was thrilling, as well as the reception given by my host, Professor Steve McKelvey, at his home the evening before. Steve is my "academic brother" since he and I had the same dissertation advisor at Brown University, Dr. Stella Dafermos.

I stayed in Northfield at the Archer House Inn, which dates to 1877, and I got the "bridal" room, complete with a canopy bed. Northfield's history includes the 1876 raid of Jesse James and his gang, who robbed the First National Bank in Northfield that year. The town commemorates that event each year in September.

It was terrific to see St. Olaf College, which has a rich Norwegian heritage, and the architecture, both old and new, is simply stunning. The serenity of the campus and its beauty plus the attention that I saw given to students and the numbers that showed up to office hours, all speak eloquently of a liberal arts education. I had the opportunity to go to lunch with female students, to visit Professor McKelvey's operations research and finance classes, and to enjoy meeting with economics faculty and students as well as the math, statistics, and computer science faculty. I very much appreciated the energy of the faculty and the attention to detail in planning my visit. Also, the weather was magnificent -- sunny and the temps in the 70s! Faculty, however, still have snow survival gear in their car trunks and my host told me how he trekked one day 3 miles from his home in snowshoes to teach his classes!

I enjoyed giving my talk very much and was so pleased when the students packed the beautiful room in -- they were even sitting in the aisles and on the stairs. My talk lasted until almost 9:30PM and I enjoyed the questions and comments afterwards. I even got to meet a legislator from Minnesota who came to hear me speak.

St. Olaf is known for its programs in mathematics, science, and music. A sizable portion of its graduates in these fields pursue advanced degrees. One student that I met (many are from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and surrounding states) is from Norway and she will be graduating next month and then matriculating into the PhD program at Stanford University in petroleum engineering. She was also involved in the 2009 Rube Goldberg competition and the St. Olaf team won the 2009 national championship beating out major universities such as Illinois and Texas. I got to see the apparatus and to meet with the students who designed it. The winning demonstration can be viewed on youtube.

Giving the Kleber-Gery Lecture at St. Olaf in Minnesota

This coming Thursday, I will deliver the Kleber-Gery Lecture, which is an endowed lecture, at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. St. Olaf College is a liberal arts college situated on a hill in Northfield, which is 35 miles south of Minneapolis. 40% of the undergraduates concentrate in the natural sciences or mathematics. The topic of my Kleber-Gery Lecture is supply chain vulnerabilities and synergies in a global economy and what 50 years of advances in transportation tell us. My host will be Dr. Steven McKelvey, who is the Chair of the Department of Mathematics at St. Olaf. Dr. McKelvey received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and we overlapped for a few years. Both he and I had Professor Stella Dafermos as our doctoral dissertation advisor. Dr. McKelvey's dissertation focused on partitionable variational inequalities with applications to spatial price equilibrium and transportation network equilibrium problems.

Professor McKelvey tells me that the Kleber-Gery lecture was made possible through an endowment given by a student who admired both Professors Kleber and Gery, who are now emeriti professors. One was a mathematician/statistician and the other one an economist. The lecture alternates between the two departments but the invited speaker should be of interest to members and students of both departments. The lecture is open to the public and is meant for a general audience.

My lecture will take place this coming Thursday in the Regents Hall of Science, which is a new building on the St. Olaf campus. I am very honored to have been selected to give this lecture and am delighted that I will be visiting Northfield and St. Olaf later this week. Coincidentally, and interestingly, Massachusetts also has a town named Northfield, which is in western Massachusetts. Northfield, MA is the location of the prep school known as Northfield Mount Hermon, whose head is Mr. Tom Sturtevant.

One of my esteemed colleagues at UMass Amherst, Professor Murugappan Muthukumar, of the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, who also happens to be a neighbor of mine, tells me how important it is to accept invitations to speak at not only universities but also colleges. This past year, among many talks at universities and other venues, I spoke last September at Smith College, an all female college in Northampton, MA, which is in proximity to Amherst, and I had a delightful time. The audience of very bright students and engaged faculty helped to kick off a most interesting academic year!