Packing Up for the Regional Science Conference in Atlanta

I am getting ready for the 60th Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International, which are taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, November 13 -16, 2013. 

My two talks are prepared and a session organized. My presentations are uploaded to the Supernetwork Center website.

The session that I organized is in honor of Professor David E. Boyce, who is both an RSAI Fellow and an INFORMS Fellow (He and I are the only Fellows of both of these societies). This will be Professor Boyce's 50th consecutive such conference -- He considers himself lucky and we are thrilled to be honoring him in Atlanta for his scientific leadership and mentorship.


Formal Paper Session In Honor of Professor David E. Boyce ‐‐ His 50th NARSC Conference ‐‐ His Scholarship and Mentorship Friday Nov 15 | 10:30 AM‐12:30 PM |Grand Ballroom 3

Organizer and Chair: Anna Nagurney, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts

• Conventional Transportation Planning Models: Review and Prospects for Alternatives, Tschangho John Kim, University of Illinois
• A Corridor‐Centric Approach to Planning Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, Marco Nie, Northwestern University
• David Boyce, RSAI Archivist, Kieran Donaghy, Cornell University
• Shrinking Global Population ‐‐ a Futuristic Scenario or a Current Challenge, Hillel Bar‐Gera, Ben‐Gurion University of the Negev.

One of my talks will be in the second Memorial Session in honor of Professor Walter Isard and I have reposted both sessions below:

Special Session Water Isard Memorial Session I Thursday Nov 14 | 1:30 PM‐3:30 PM | Grand Ballroom 3
Organizers: Tschangho John Kim, University Of Illinois; Adam Rose, USC
Chair: David Boyce, Northwestern University

• Rise of Megalopolis as a Mega Knowledge Region: Interactions of Innovations in Transport, Information, Production, and Organizations, T. R. Lakshmanan, Boston University; William Anderson, University of Windsor; Yena Song, University of Southhampton
• Framework for Spatial Models for Future Cities, Tschangho John Kim, University of Illinois
• Demographic Challenges to Regional Development, Geoffrey Hewings, University of Illinois ‐ Urbana‐Champaign; Euijune Kim, Seoul National University
• Cluster Dynamics: Structural Properties of Cluster Life‐Cycles and Public Policy, Roger Stough, George Mason University.

Discussants:
 David Boyce, Northwestern University
 Karima Kourtit, Free University, Amsterdam
 Kingsley E Haynes, George Mason University
 Tschangho John Kim, University Of Illinois.

Special Session Water Isard Memorial Session II Saturday Nov 16 | 10:30 AM‐ 12:30 PM | Grand Ballroom 3
Organizers: Tschangho John Kim, University Of Illinois; Adam Rose, USC
Chairs: Karima Kourtit, Free University, Amsterdam; Adam Rose, USC

• An Integrated Disaster Relief Supply Chain Network Model with Time Targets and Demand Uncertainty, Anna Nagurney, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts; Amir H. Masoumi, Manhattan College; Min Yu, University of Portland
• Impact of Transportation Infrastructure in the US Northeast: A Spatial Econometric CGE Assessment, Zhenhua Chen, George Mason University; Kingsley E. Haynes, George Mason University
• High‐speed Railroad Passenger Services: What Market Sizes and Station Spacings Are Indicative of Success? David Boyce, Northwestern University; Satish Ukkusuri, Purdue University; Jacqueline Lo, Northwestern University; Jiwon Kim, Northwestern University
• The Process of Regional Economic Growth: A Modeling Perspective, Richard S. Conway, Jr.

Discussants:
 Adam Rose, USC
 T. R. Lakshmanan, Boston University
 Roger Stough, George Mason University
 Geoffrey Hewings, University of Illinois ‐ Urbana‐Champaign.


The full conference program can be directly accessed here.

Is this a Scientific Guinness World Record -- Attendance at 50 Consecutive Annual Meetings of the Same Conference!

I don't think that Guinness in its compilation of World Records has a category for this achievement but perhaps it should.
In November, Professor David Boyce, who is both an INFORMS Fellow and an RSAI Fellow, will be attending his 50th consecutive North American Regional Science conference, which will take place in Atlanta, Georgia. His first such conference was in 1964! Walter Isard was the founder of Regional Science and he passed away in 2010 at age 91.
 
David reflected on his Fifty Years at the North American Regional Science Meetings (we are assuming that he will be there in Atlanta and 49 consecutive meetings is an achievement, as well). in an essay published in the NARSC newsletter in which he wrote:
I attended my first Meetings of the Regional Science Association in November 1964 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At the time I was a graduate student focused on my thesis research, and working full time on the side to support my expanding family. Through careful planning, and extraordinary good luck, I have not missed the North American Meetings since. If my luck continues to hold, I will attend my 50th consecutive North American Meetings next November in Atlanta.

I have wondered out loud to a few people what I might do to commemorate this event. The likely answer is nothing unusual: give a 20-minute talk, and say hello to the many colleagues I have met over the years, whose friendship I cherish. This invitation to write a few lines for the first newsletter of the North American Regional Science Council presents an unexpected opportunity to say more on this occasion that may interest younger readers, as well as remind some of my contemporaries about the meetings back then.

Given Professor Boyce's outstanding scientific contributions, his mentorship and advocacy of numerous students and professional colleagues, and his impact on transportation and regional science globally, I had to do something to honor this very special person.


So, I asked the Program Chair of the NARSC conference, Dr. Peter Stenberg, and its Executive Director, Dr. Neil Reid, whether I could organize a special session in honor of Professor Boyce, and they both agreed. The response was wonderful and below I have the information on the session, which will take place at the NARSC conference on Friday, November 15, 2013, from 10:30AM-12:30PM. And, if you see Professor Boyce, in the meantime, congratulate him on his stamina, dedication, and as, he even acknowledges, "luck."

Session: In Honor of Professor David E. Boyce – His 50^th NARSC Conference – His Scholarship and Mentorship

Organizer: Anna Nagurney, John F. Smith Memorial Professor, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Paper #1: Conventional Transportation Planning Models: Review and Prospects for Alternatives

Presenter: Tschangho John Kim, Endowed Professor Emeritus, Urban and Regional Systems, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; email: tjohnkim@illinois.edu

Paper #2: A Corridor-Centric Approach to Planning Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Presenter: Marco Nie, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois; email: y-nie@northwestern.edu

Paper #3: David Boyce, RSAI Archivist

Presenter: Kieran Donaghy, Department Chair, Department of City & Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, NewYork; e-mail: kpd23@cornell.edu

Paper #4: Shrinking Global Population - a Futuristic Scenario or a Current Challenge 

Presenter: Hillel Bar-Gera, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; email: bargera@bgu.ac.il

David Boyce has served as a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania (1966-1977), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1977-1988), and the University of Illinois at Chicago (1988-2003). He is a Fellow of the Regional Science Association International (2002), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (2003), and the American Society of Civil Engineers (2009), and is an Emeritus Member of the Transportation Networks Committee of the Transportation Research Board. He has published over 190 journal articles, books, book chapters and reports.

Congratulations to the Newly Elected 2013 RSAI Fellows!

I was delighted to receive the great news below, which is also posted now on the RSAI (Regional Science Association International) website. The Fellows Award recognizes distinguished scholars in Regional Science. I know each of the scholars below and saw Professor Capello and Professor Thill at the NARSC meeting in Ottawa, back in November. Professor Puu I have known through his work with Professor Martin Beckmann, who was on my doctoral dissertation committee at Brown University, and is renowned for his book, "Studies in the Economics of Transportation," and other research. At the INFORMS National Meeting in San Francisco in 2005, I organized two sessions to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of this great book and the presentations and many photos can be accessed here.

I had met Professor Puu in Umea in Sweden years ago. Professor Kobayashi and I had spent, along with several others, including Professors Geoff Hewings, Takayama, Johansson, a magical few weeks in Mallacootta, Australia at a regional science workshop.

As for Professor Thill -- he did some behind the scenes work, I was told by Professor David E. Boyce, to arrange the schedule at the NARSC Ottawa meeting so that I would be at the awards luncheon at which my receipt of the 2012 Walter Isard Award for Scholarly Achievement was announced. I had no idea that I would be the recipient and, coincidentally, Professor Bill Anderson of the University of Windsor in Ontario (I was born in Windsor) gave me this award and he had been in Umea when it was announced that Professor Jacques Thisse and I were the recipients of the Kempe Prize (also a complete shock to me and I fainted).

I look forward to celebrating with the 2013 Fellows at the 60th NARSC Conference next Fall in Atlanta!

2013 elected RSAI Fellows

RSAI is pleased to announce the election of the following Fellows in 2013:

Roberta Capello, Polytechnic Milano, ITALY Roberta Capello is professor in Regional and urban economics at the Politecnico of Milan. Past-President of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI). Editor in chief of the Italian Journal of Regional Science and co-editor of Letters in Spatial and Resource Science (Springer Verlag). Editor in chief of Papers in Regional Science from RSAI. Author of many scientific papers and a textbook in Regional Economics, published in Italian and English.

Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Kyoto University, JAPAN Kobayashi is the recipient of several awards and prizes for his research including the Hinomaru Prize in 1988, the JSCE (Japan Society of Civil Engineers) Research Prize in 1993, 2001 and 2007. In 2007 he was included in the Top 50 City Creators and Urban Experts of the Ministry of the Environment of Denmark. From 1978-1986, Kobayashi was a Research Associate in Graduate School of Engineering of Kyoto University. In 1987 he became an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Systems Engineering at Tottori University, where in 1990 he became a full time Professor. In 1996 he returned to Kyoto University as a full time Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering. In 2007 he became the Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Management of Kyoto University and in 2009 he became the Dean.

Tönu Puu, University of Umeå, SWEDEN Tönu Puu, born in 1936 in Tallinn, was Professor of Economics at Umeå University from 1971 to 2001. Afterwards he worked at the Centre for Regional Studies (Cerum) for ten years. In total, he has published twenty books and 130 scholarly articles in economics, mathematics and philosophy.

Jean-Claude Thill, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA Jean-Claude is Professor of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA. He has previously held positions at SUNY - Buffalo, the University of Georgia, Florida Atlantic University and the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He has also served NARSC superbly for many years in many administrative capacities. His research has centered on the spatial dimension of mobility systems and their consequences on how space is used and organized in modern societies; statistical and computational methods of spatial analysis; and most recently urban land-use dynamics.