Extraordinary Event in Support of Ukraine Organized by the Kyiv School of Economics at the Harvard Club in NYC

A short while ago, we returned from NYC, where we took part in an event on September 17 at the Harvard Club in support of Ukraine that was organized by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) with assistance provided by Razom for Ukraine and United24. 

The event included a conference in the afternoon on the theme: "The Independence War in Ukraine: Global Implications" followed by a charity dinner with the subtheme of: "The Present and Future of the Country."

The full program, which contains information on the conference sessions, with overarching themes of global security, resilience in war, energy security, as well as food security, can be found on the event page. The conference program was outstanding (it was tough to choose between the parallel sessions) with academics, executives, Ukrainian government ministers, an ambassador, thought leaders, representatives from the World Bank, and even the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine taking part.

Given the research that we have been doing for quite a few years on agricultural supply chains, I was thrilled to hear from the panel on World Food Security, which was moderated by Dr. Oleg Nivievskyi, an agricultural economist, who is Vice President for Economics Education at KSE.

High food prices were emphasized, along with the costs of logistics in Ukraine and the costs of fertilizer and fuel, plus how there is so much uncertainty now. Getting agricultural products out of Ukraine is essential to food security and just having the port of Odesa open (with the recent brokered agreement by the UN with support from Turkey) not enough. The port of Mikolayiv also is sorely needed.  In addition, the need for weapons to defeat Russia was emphasized along with sanctions. The extremely challenged farmers paid $40/ton to ship grain before the war and now the cost has risen to $200/ton.

There were opportunities to network and to chat in the elegant Harvard Club.

I'd like to congratulate the President of KSE, Tymofiy Mylovanov, and the Rector of KSE, Tymofii Brik, for the excellent organization of the conference and charity dinner, and for being incredible masters of ceremony of the event, as well as ambassadors for higher education in Ukraine and for the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine.

Even the Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, came during the cocktail honor and gave a speech. We were delighted to see him with his entourage as he entered and exited the Harvard Club. He even shook the hand of my spouse, Ladimer S. Nagurney, who had accompanied me. Below is a photo taken by Mylovanov of Eric Adams speaking.

I have had a several year association with KSE and serve on its International Academic Board as well as on its Board of Directors. I was in Kyiv most recently in September, 2019, for a board meeting. After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, on February 24, 2022, I was elected a Co-Chair of the KSE Board of Directors, an appointment I am deeply honored by. I continue to be deeply inspired by my colleagues at KSE for their extraordinary work, efforts, and accomplishments in wartime, which are heroic. 

I am also delighted that UMass Amherst signed a partnership with KSE and acknowledge the great efforts on this by our Director of  the International Programs Office and Vice Provost for Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi. We expect to be announcing the first round of selected Virtual Scholars soon. More info on the partnership. 

The Chair of the International Academic Board, the Nobel laureate in Economics, Roger Myerson, gave a wonderful speech at the charity dinner.

The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman also spoke and noted that borscht is a Ukrainian dish and that Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom of the free world.

The President of Razom for Ukraine, Dora Chomiak, also spoke. Razom for Ukraine has been assisting in humanitarian relief in Ukraine for many years.

The Ukrainian National anthem was beautifully sung by the NYC Ukrainian chorus Dumka! The ambiance for the dinner was stunning and the food was delicious.

There were many additional speakers from the US and Ukraine at the dinner, who provided touching personal accounts and insights. 

It was great that several KSE IAB and BOD members could take part in the event, including Ambassador John Herbst and Yuri Gorodnichenko of UC Berkeley. Given that there were about 300 in attendance, I certainly may have missed someone from KSE! I also acknowledge how much I enjoyed speaking with Svitlana Denysenko from KSE, who has been behind the organization of many Zoom meetings that we have had with KSE colleagues during wartime.

It was heartwarming to take the photos below with KSE Rector Brik and the Director of the KSE Institute - Nataliia Shapoval.

Below are a few photos taken during the auction component of the charity dinner with Mylovanov and Brik featured below.

I especially liked the symbol of #resilience, a rooster, which was being auctioned off. The rooster figurine had survived a bombardment of a big apartment complex. It now stands for the amazing resilience of Ukrainians. Even a piece of the airplane Mriya, which has been shot down, was auctioned off.

I wish that we had had more time to chat with the many incredible individuals at this event, who came to support Ukraine, some of whom continue to be at the front lines. I look forward to a time, before too long, in which we can together mark and celebrate the end of this horrific war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine, without any provocation or reason, with global implications and suffering! As an academic, and as a daughter of refugees from Ukraine, I stand with Ukraine. Thanks to all those who participated in an event, that we will never forget! Kudos and thanks to the organizers. 

A Stunning Infographic via a Tweet - Nash, Braess, Sadik-Khan, and Me Thanks to Dewan Karim

It's always enjoyable to get a pleasant message whether through email, a phone call, in person, or even via a tweet.

I have been mourning the tragic death of John Nash while in Sweden since he influenced so much of my work and was such an extraordinary individual.

Last week, via Twitter, I received a message from Dewan Karim who tweeted the above infographic, which I thought was stunning. Obviously, it had taken him time to prepare  so I contacted him to thank him  and asked him for permission to post it in this blogpost, which he granted. Dewan tweets under Complete Mobility @DewanMKarim. He is a professional engineer and is a transportation planner in the greater Toronto area.

Not only did he include John Nash, but also Dietrich Braess, of Braess paradox fame, whom I also admire so much, and had the pleasure of hosting at the Isenberg School back in 2006.

Dewan told me that he attended the Traffic panel that I was a panelist on at the World Science Festival in NYC, which I wrote a post on.  He became very interested in the Braess paradox which I spoke on and, in particular, relative to Mayor Bloomberg shutting Broadway from 42nd to 47th Street to vehicular traffic and converting it to a pedestrian plaza.  This decision was made in conjunction with Dr. Janette Sadik-Khan.


Interestingly, I last saw Dr. Sadik-Khan, of whom I am also a big fan, when she and I were panelists together on the Transport and Traffic at The New York Times Energy for Tomorrow Conference, also in NYC, in  2013.

I like the above ninfographic so much that I will show it to my students in my Transportation and Logistics class at the Isenberg School next Fall.

In any event, it is so nice to be on the same page with researchers and a practitioner I so much admire.

Thank you, Dewan Karim!

From Presidencies of Liberal Arts Colleges to Leading Iconic NYC Cultural Institutions - Those School Ties

I was absolutely delighted to hear the announcement yesterday in The New York Times that the former President of Lafayette College (my husband's undergraduate alma mater), Dr. Dan Weiss, who is an art historian, with an MBA from Yale, was selected to be the next President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Dr. Weiss had served as Lafayette's President from 2005 - 2013 and I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife at the college at a lovely event hosted by them in the Fall of 2012 at Lafayette. It was a pleasure to chat with them. They were so personable and pleasant and the conversations just flowed. The new college arts theater will be named after him and his wife, Sandra.

Weiss has been the President of Haverford College, another liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, since 2013,  and will be leaving after less than 2 years to become President of the Met, probably the top job for an art historian on our planet, so congratulations are in order!

In addition, the NYC Public Library is headed by Dr. Tony Marx, the former President of Amherst College, located  in the town that I live in. I last saw Dr. Marx when he gave the commencement speech at the Deerfield Academy graduation on May 27, 2012. Both his son and my daughter graduated Deerfield that day and the ceremonies were truly special and elegant.  Dr. Marx was part of the carpool on our block - impressive. And he did the driving when he was President of Amherst College, one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country!

Both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the NYC Public Library, two iconic NYC institutions, are located on 5th Avenue about 40 blocks apart.

As Weiss said in The New York Times interview, he began going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he was a teenager and fell in love with it and so did I. The same holds for the NYC Public Library where I spent many a winter break from Brown University doing research and writing papers, as an undergraduate.

And, speaking of Lafayette, it has been quite the year for not only arts but also sports with the 150th anniversary football game played against Lehigh University at Yankee Stadium (Lafayette won) plus Lafayette's win last night in men's basketball against American University so now they are off to the big dance of the NCAA and garnered the Patriot League Championship. Congratulations!

Historic College Rivalry Takes Over NYC

There are many college rivalries - you probably have your favorite - from Harvard vs. Yale, Army vs. Navy,  Amherst College vs. Williams College, or USC vs. UCLA, but I will be writing about another one - a truly historic one and, yes, indeed, it has been played out in sports, especially football.

The past 3 days I spent in NYC taking part in the iconic #rivalry150 events surrounding the 150th meeting of  Lafayette College and Lehigh University in a football game in none other  than Yankee Stadium to a sold out audience on Saturday of over 48,200 ticket holders!

I admit my husband is a very loyal Lafayette College alum. He received his undergrad degree in physics there before moving on to his graduate degrees, including the PhD, from Brown University. I am a Brown U. alum (4 times over) and a Harvard one as well since I was a Science Fellow at Radcliffe.

Very often one's  loyalties lie with one's undergraduate alma mater since the undergraduate years provide such formative experiences.

Lafayette and Lehigh are part of the Patriot League, a Division 1 athletics league. Both schools also have outstanding academic reputations and I especially respect their excellence in STEM fields.

The New York Times had great coverage of this rivalry with the first meeting of the two football teams in 1884.  Both schools had worked very hard to generate interest and  the activities in NYC were tremendous. Spoiler alert for those who have not heard - Lafayette "routed" (New York Times' choice of words) Lehigh with a score of 27-7 and this they accomplished with a third string quarterback, Zach Zweizig, whose name will go down in his college's history.  

Zach has overcome injuries plus the death of his father and it was only last week that he was called on by his coach to take on the incredible challenge of playing quarterback at Yankee Stadium!

We took the MetroNorth train from New Haven and, in walking to our favorite hotel in NYC, The Excelsior, on 81st Street, through Central Park, on Friday, we heard a band playing, so with our suitcases we investigated and it was the Lehigh band practicing along with cheerleaders.

That morning there was coverage of the rivalry on both the Today Show and GMA.

The Presidents of the two academic institutions, President Alison Byerly of Lafayette College and President Kevin J. Clayton of Lehigh, got to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday with the college mascots of a lepoard and a mountain hawk to accompany them.

 Courtesy of the Associated Press

Friday evening we were treated to a gala event with scrumptious desserts at the Museum of Natural History, and I felt as though I was in the movie Night at the Museum.

On Saturday morning, before going to the game, we saw several Lafayette College students walking on Broadway in leopard prints, of course!

The below photos were taken at the football game at Yankee Stadium. It was great to see the two college bands perform together at halftime!

And, as the sun was setting, the Empire State building was lit up in the rival school colors, maroon and white, and brown and white!

And, no wonder why we all love NYC, after the game on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, because of the crowds trying to get on the subway, everyone was allowed to just pass through!

More great coverage of the game and events from USAToday to NPR can be found here.

The terrific memories are what build great school spirit!

How Much Would You Give to Your College or University -- Mayor Bloomberg of NYC Has Given Over $1 Billion to His

I am a big fan of NYC and also of its long-serving mayor, Michael Bloomberg, under whose leadership such changes to NYC (now permanent) as the closure of Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th Street to traffic and conversion to pedestrian plazas, have taken place. This was a subject of my interview for the  America Revealed video with Yul Kwon.

On the front page of today's New York Times, there is a terrific article on Bloomberg's love for his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to which, with his latest promised gift, he will have donated $1.1 billion dollars, with his first gift, upon his graduation in 1964, being a donation of $5.

Coincidentally, my doctoral dissertation advisor at Brown University, Stella Dafermos (as well as her husband), had matriculated at Johns Hopkins University for their PhDs in 1964.

The article is a great read and I was informed that Bloomberg was an engineering major (actually electrical engineering) and had gone to Medford High in Massachusetts, where he was very bored. I located an earlier article on Bloomberg and Medford which stated that he had been President of the Medford High School slide rule club (all the engineers of a certain age out there will appreciate this).

Bloomberg attributes some of his leadership skills to his alma mater, where he was President of his fraternity and President of his senior class. 

The Times article also speaks to Bloomberg's love of his alma mater, and what his incredible financial contributions have built -- he has bankrolled and molded the handsome brick-and-marble walkways, lamps and benches that dot the campus; has constructed a physics building, a school of public health, a children’s hospital, a stem-cell research institute, a malaria institute and a library wing; has commissioned giant art installations by Kendall Buster, Mark Dion and Robert Israel; and has financed 20 percent of all need-based financial aid grants to undergraduates over the past few years.

 I very much appreciate his appreciation of and emphasis on art and on aesthetics. The children's hospital at Hopkins is named for Bloomberg's mother, Charlotte,  and the exterior was inspired by Monet's paintings. Since I was in NYC earlier this month and went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), I managed to snap the photos below.

I wonder how much Bloomberg has given to Harvard, where he received his MBA?

The residential college experience can be life-transforming as Bloomberg's experiences at Johns Hopkins University clearly show.

I wonder what percentage of college graduates give back financially to their institutions?

The Magic of Holiday Windows in NYC

I spent 3 days in NYC recently. Usually, when I travel it is to give a talk or to attend a conference but this time I was playing the role of a "spouse" and was in NYC to support my husband who was being honored by the Radio Club of America.

The weather at this time of year could not have been better so we walked for miles.

The Christmas tree was up in Rockefeller Center but had not yet been decorated and the shades were still drawn at the Saks windows.

Several major stores (lucky for us) had already decorated their holiday windows and the below photos were taken at Macy's (which will be the destination of the Thanksgiving parade this Thursday as it has been for many years), at Lord & Taylor's, and at Tiffany's.

I thought that these displays captured so well the magic of this season and,  given all the major weather events of the past year including, Superstorm Sandy, it was relaxing to just view some beautiful window displays.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate this special holiday!
Holiday Windows at Macy's

Holiday Windows at Lord & Taylor

     Holiday Windows at Tiffany's

When I was an Assistant Professor at UMass Amherst, after receiving my PhD from Brown University, two colleagues from Marketing, who have since left, and have had prominent careers, Professor Tom Madden and Professor Bill Dillon, used to tease me that "they don't do windows."

The beauty and artistry in the above (and the Tiffany window displays are miniatures), can't help but inspire.

It's Official -- Congrats to Cornell and Technion!

Mayor Bloomberg of NYC has chosen Cornell University in partnership with Technion - Israel Institute of Technology to build a $2 billion graduate school of applied sciences it was just announced in The New York Times. Congrats to both institutions on this achievement that may spawn a Silicon Valley II in one of my favorite cities in the world.

According to Bloomberg, this project, to be constructed on Roosevelt Island will be transformative.

According to the article: The school, which will not be fully built for 30 years, calls for 2,000 students, 300 faculty members and two million square feet on a patch of city-owned land that now houses a little-known hospital. In addition, the universities are offering a $150 million fund for startups begun on the campus that remain in New York for three years.

There was some major drama surrounding this competition, since Stanford University, considered another top contender, pulled out last Friday and The Chronicle of Higher Education had a provocative article emailed out this morning, entitled, "Stanford's Dream of 'Silicon Valley II' Dissolves Into Angry Recrimination."

Best of luck to Cornell and Technion and a salute to Mayor Bloomberg for his promotion of science and engineering!

How exciting that Cornell’s plan calls for 500,000 square feet of public space and partnerships with the public school system, including math and science support for at least 10,000 students.

I very much enjoyed the quote of Cornell’s president, Dr. David J. Skorton, “This is a story of connectivity — of connectivity between people and their ideas, between researchers and business people, between students and their dreams.” “This is an exercise in inclusion and having all the ships rise in this fine city. New York City is positioned to become the new technological capital of the world.”

I have a fondness for Cornell having been there multiple times to give invited talks and I even served on the National Allocation Committee for the NSF Supercomputer Center there before it lost its funding. Last time I was at Cornell was this past summer.

I am sure that the champagne is flowing in Ithaca and in NYC.

You can read the press release here.

My Father Had Worked at the World Trade Center

My father had worked at the World Trade Center and one of my fondest memories of coming home for breaks during my college years at Brown University was to accompany him via public transportation from Yonkers to the WTC so that I could join him for a cup of coffee and muffin at one of the cafes on a high-level floor before he would begin his job at the engineering firm that he was employed at. We would sometimes stop at the shops at the lowest level and he would buy me some article of clothing to take back to college.

My father died before the WTC towers fell a decade ago on 9/11. He had lived through WWI and WWII, had left his native country, Ukraine, and, as a refugee, had managed to build a new life, first in Canada, and then in the US. The towers were a special home to him and to me.

My uncle, who also was a refugee of WW II, and had helped to save my mother from the Nazis as they escaped from their home in western Ukraine and then sheltered her, first in Vienna, and, subsequently, at a displaced persons camp close to Innsbruck, Austria, also built a wonderful life for his family and himself in NYC, first in Forest Fills, and then in Kinnelon, New Jersey. My mother, after age 18, never saw her parents again.

On 9/11, my uncle, rather than taking public transportation from NJ, which included first taking a bus and then the subway to his stop at the WTC, that day, ten years ago, he had overslept, so he decided to drive.

If he had taken public transportation he would have been at the WTC when the towers fell.

He arrived at the Lincoln Tunnel and saw a lot of smoke and a large backup. He was asked whether he wanted to turn back and his intuition told him to do so. He then listened to the horrific news on the radio. The information at that point had not reached the toll operators.

On that day, ten years ago, which started out as a beautiful clear morning, I was working on my lectures at home. Our daughter was at her elementary school. My husband received a phone message from a colleague who had moved to Pennsylvania and who said to him: "Turn on the TV."

A neighbor came running to our door shortly thereafter and we just hugged and supported one another.

3,000 perished on that day and their families, neighbors, and friends, were lastingly affected.

It took me 8 years before I could visit the site of the fallen towers, and I did so while in Brooklyn at the Regional Science Association Conference. I walked the Brooklyn Bridge and then, with the assistance of a NYC police officer who gave me directions, made it to the huge pit and the tears just flowed.

A decade after, much has changed, and we still gather strength from one another. My uncle, now in his 90s, has moved to mid-Manhattan. He continues to ride the subway to the same engineering firm, where he still works a few days a week, and which is close to the WTC Memorial.

I continue to teach and to do research on topics that I love from transportation and logistics, to networks, and, of course, operations research and management science.

That morning, I was working on my transportation and logistics course lectures, while Jane Garvey, an Amherst resident, who I had even dined with, and was then head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), was leading the effort, that, within four hours of the first attack, had every civilian aircraft in the US, more than 5,000 planes, safely on the ground. You may read a recent interview with her here. This past spring, I had the honor of receiving a transportation leadership award in her name.


Thanks to all the heroes of that day, from the emergency responders, who risked their lives and to those who perished, to the individuals who helped each other, and to the government leaders who assisted in the national recovery.

World Science Festival 2011 -- Spotlight: Women in Science

The 2011 World Science Festival (WSF) begins June 1 in NYC and runs through June 5. It will consist of 50 different events over 5 days and, should be as fabulous as previous WSFs!

Although I would have liked to have seen more female mathematicians and scientists in this year's lineup there is a "Spotlight: Women in Science," which includes another former Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Science Fellow, Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan, a physicist at Yale. She was at Radcliffe in 2008-2009.

I was also a Radcliffe Fellow, in 2005-2006, and had the honor and great fun of taking part in the WSF in 2009 as part of the Traffic panel. You can read some of my reflections and view a video from this event here.

Dr. Brian Greene and his wife, Tracy Day, are the brains and innovators behind this fabulous festival.

If you get a chance to attend at least one event, I am sure that you will certainly long remember it!