SBP 2011 Conference Highlights Through Photos

The SBP 2011 conference has been a huge success from the outstanding tutorials and great keynotes, as well as paper presentations (with a refereed proceedings volume), plus social activities.





One of the absolute highlights was sponsorship of 30 students to attend this conference!

Many, many thanks to the sponsors: NSF, NIH, ONR. AFOSR, and ARO for bringing together computer scientists, social scientists from economists to anthropologists, operations researchers and management scientists, applied mathematicians, biologists, medical professionals, cognitive scientists and psychologists, as well as engineers and network scientists!

Special thanks to the Conference Co-chairs, Professor Dana Nau of the University of Maryland and Professor Sun-ki Chai of the University of Hawaii, and to the Program Co-Chairs: John Salerno of the Air Force Research Lab and Professor Jay Yang of the Rochester Institute of Technology for such an excellently organized conference, the terrific venue, and so many stimulating discussions plus such a delicious set of lunches and coffee breaks!

Special thanks also to the Conference Committee:

Huan Liu, Arizona State University
John Salerno, Air Force Reasearch Laboratory
Sun Ki Chai, University of Hawaii
Patricia L. Mabry, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, National Institutes of Health
Dana Nau, University of Maryland
V.S. Subrahmanian, University of Maryland

It was an honor to be on this team as the tutorial chair!

Isenberg School Doctoral Students in Management Science Shine

It's wonderful when some good news arrives and it is especially heart-warming when the good news is about our students!

This week, we heard that one of my doctoral students in Management Science, Nathan Kollett, received a travel award of up to $800 so that he could attend the SBP 2011 Conference that will take place at the University of Maryland College Park, March 28-31, 2011. How wonderful that the organizers of this conference actually wrote grants in order to support student travel! As the Tutorial Chair of this conference, I must say that this support of students is simply fabulous!

Also, another doctoral student of mine in Management Science, Min Yu, received notification that she has been accepted to take part in the 2011 POMS Doctoral Consortium that will take place in Reno, Nevada on April 30, 2011. The program for this consortium, which is one of the events at the POMS Conference, looks fantastic and is below.

Agenda:
1:30-1:45 Introduction: Craig Froehle, U. Cincinnati (USA)

Getting Started in a Successful Academic Career (finishing the dissertation, getting an academic position, what to expect as a new assistant professor, etc.)
1:45-2:05 Rachna Shah, U. Minnesota, (USA)
2:05-2:25 Bo van der Rhee, Nyenrode U. (Neth.)
2:25-2:45 Panel Session: Q & A

2:45-3:00 Break / Snacks

Breakout Session
3:00–3:45 Participants present/discuss research plans (2-3 minutes each around a table)
Facilitators:
- Rachna Shah, U. Minnesota, (USA)
- Bo van der Rhee, Nyenrode U. (Neth.)
- Cheryl Gaimon, Georgia Tech (USA)
- Craig Froehle, U. Cincinnati (USA)

3:45-4:00 Break / Snacks

Balancing Research, Teaching, and Service (how to manage faculty's various competing responsibilities, thinking early on about a career plan, etc.)
4:00-4:20 Cheryl Gaimon, Georgia Tech (USA)
4:20-4:40 Craig Froehle, U. Cincinnati (USA)
4:40-5:00 Panel Session: Q & A.

At the POMS Conference, Min will also be presenting one of our joint papers, "Multiproduct Supply Chain Network Design with Applications to Healthcare," which is co-authored with Dr. Patrick Qiang. In addition, another one of my doctoral students, Amir H. Masoumi, will be presenting the paper, "Supply Chain Network Operations Management of a Blood Banking System with Cost and Risk Minimization," at this POMS Conference, co-authored with Min and me. Both of these papers will be in the Healthcare Operations Management track.

And, of course, our doctoral students in Management Science are busy this semester preparing for the First Northeast Regional INFORMS Conference that will take place at UMass Amherst, May 6-7, 2011. They are delighted that there will be an all-student panel at which some of the present (and previous) chapter officers of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter will discuss how to run a successful chapter! We have seen a preliminary program for this conference and, I am a bit biased, but it is fantastic! Several of our doctoral students will be presenting their research at this conference.

Exciting Tutorials at the International SBP 2011 Conference!

I am very pleased that the tutorials have been finalized for the 2011 SBP (Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction) Conference, which will take place March 28-31, 2011 at the University of Maryland College Park.

Confirmed tutorial givers and their tutorial titles at SBP 2011 are:

Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland of the Media Lab at MIT: "Toolkits for Computational Social Science: Using Honest Signals to Predict and Shape Human Responses;"

Dr. Patty Mabry of NIH and Dr. Nate Osgood of the University of Saskatchewan: "Public Health Concepts: An Introduction for Modelers;"

Dr. Allen Tien of MDLOGIX and two team members: "Social Network Analysis of Personal and Group Networks," and

Dr. Jarideep Srivastava of the University of Minnesota: "Behavioral Informatics: Data Management and Mining Techniques Enabling Computational Behavioral Science."

The above tutorials will be delivered on March 28, 2011.

Tutorials and keynote talks are some of my favorite events at professional conferences so I hope that you can join us next March.

As the tutorial chair for this conference I am delighted with the above list of speakers and look forward to their tutorials! I might add that the program committee has been wonderful in identifying outstanding keynote speakers, which include Dr. Kim Thompson of Harvard's School of Public Health and Dr. Herb Gintis of the Santa Fe Institute (and a former colleague of mine at UMass Amherst).

Keep on checking the above conference website link, as information will continue to get posted.