The Beauty of Stockholm and a Thanks to the Royal Institute of Technology

I returned recently to Amherst, Massachusetts from Sweden and have become a bicontinental citizen since I now also have a visiting faculty appointment at the University of Gothenburg, which is in Sweden's second largest city.

During my recent month-long stay in Sweden, I had an opportunity to visit Stockholm, and to speak at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). My wonderful host was Professor Lars-Goran Mattsson, who is the head of the Deoartment of Transport Science. Sweden is supporting research in transportation and logistics and it is wonderful to see the research community flourishing. The transportation infrastructure in Sweden is also fabulous and I never tire of seeing the trams, ferries, and trains plus the wonderful pedestrian walkways and bicycle lanes.

Despite my seminar taking place on June 18, 2012, which was only a few days before what the Swedes call midsommar and which they take very seriously because it marks the beginning of their summer, the attendance at my talk was great. I even got to see Dr. Dr. PO Lindberg (this is not a typo -- Lindberg did successfully defend his second doctoral dissertation at KTH on June 1, 2012). The photo above is of the three of us after my seminar on perishable product supply chains in health care.

Prior to my seminar, I was treated to a sumptious lunch at KTH. The Swedes are known for their delicious fish, chicken, and even pancake dishes (I'll feature desserts later in this post.)

Having lived in Stockholm, on three different occasions, when my daughter was 2, 4, and 7, it was great to have my husband and daughter with me in Stockholm.

Beauty never fails to inspire. The photos below are of the breathtaking architecture and natural beauty of Stockholm.

And, as promised, below I have posted photos of desserts in Stockholm, the second one below in the form of a dessert, which was made of shrimp and lettuce and I found at one of the train station cafes.

Back now in Amherst, with all the wonderful experiences in Sweden as part of me, I have actually been enjoying revising papers, fortified with images and memories of Sweden.

Thank you, KTH, and, of course, thanks to the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg!

Stockholm and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden

We took the high speed train from Gothenburg to Stockholm on Sunday and returned yesterday evening riding in a first class compartment. During the train rides the scenery of lakes, birch forests, and rolling green hills made for a perfect backdrop against which we relaxed and caught up with a lot of reading. Yesterday, since we were riding in the first class train car, which was worth the extra 10 dollars or so per ticket,  we even got served  hot drinks and brownies and there was fresh fruit available at the head of the car.


As I had written in my previous post, I had been invited to give a talk at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, an invitation that I could not refuse.

My host was Professor Lars-Goran Mattsson who is head of the Department of Transport at KTH. I was treated to a delicious lunch, got to see such colleagues as Dr. Po Lindberg, who had recently earned his second PhD and has made academic history, as well as Dr. Leonid Engelson, and to meet another guest speaker that day, Dr. John Abraham from Calgary in Canada. What a coincidence that the speakers were both born in Canada!

With my talk on Perishable Product Supply Chains in Healthcare and John's presentation afterwards on Spatial Interaction Modeling, we had a mini-workshop with many great questions and discussions. Given that the date was June 18 and that Swedes are soon celebrating Midsommer, a big holiday, which they take very seriously, it was terrific to see such an engaged audience.

We discussed math modeling issues and possible extensions along with short term and long term equilibria as well as the importance of time and time scales. I was more focused on a particular sector -- that of healthcare, whereas John was describing his work on the city level and his project with the city of Baltimore.

To see research with both theoretical content and practical implications is very exciting to me, as an operations researcher, network scientist, and computational economist. Yes, I believe in algorithms and not purely closed form solutions for problems, because the data can be messy and the functions not simple.

Since my husband and daughter had come to visit me in Gothenburg, where I am now a Visiting Professor of Operations Management, and we had lived in Stockholm of three different occasions, we had a chance to explore the city as well.

After I return to the US, I will post many photos of Stockholm. Stockholm has resurrected one of its tram lines, which is great. In Gothenburg, trams snake through the city and are a marvel to watch and are just one form of the public transportation modes in this second largest city on Sweden.

It was interesting to see that the new transport links that will change the freight flows (with many trucks) around the Wenner Gren Center, where we have lived, should be completed around 2015. We also noticed the increase in traffic, with more honking, as well as the increase in the pace of life in Stockholm (which my Gothenburg colleagues had told me about) since we last lived in  Stockholm a decade ago.

Nevertheless, my daughter's favorite restaurant, Cyprus, was still there, as was our favorite pastry shop, complete with the Princess tortes.

We even peaked through the gates to the daghis (Swedish daycare) to which she had gone and dined for lunch of salmon, carrots and dilled potatoes. Yes, in Sweden, the daycares have chefs and cooks!

The beauty of Stockholm, with the water, the greenery, and the architecture of the buildings lining the archipelagos is breathtaking.

We even had a chance to visit the Museum of Modern Art with a Yoko Ono exhibition.

Last night, when we returned to Gothenburg, Sweden beat France in Euro 2012 with a score of 2-0. However, it still did not make the quarterfinals of this fabulous soccer series, which is taking place in Poland and Ukraine. Ukraine, however, lost, because Rooney of England scored the goal.

It has been a series of blue and gold and it has been fabulous to follow the soccer games here in Europe. I have been getting personal updates from Ukraine from a colleague and a former doctoral student of mine who is Ukrainian.

A Thank You to Sweden

International conferences serve as a venue for scientific exchanges, reconnecting with colleagues from around the globe, and often bring back a flood of memories. I have written several posts on this blog about the ALIO-INFORMS conference, which took place recently in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The intensity of professional conferences, coupled with their fascinating locations, enrich one's professional and social networking experiences greatly.

At the Buenos Aires conference, one of my many highpoints was the international collaborations panel, sponsored by WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences), and organized by Professor Sadan Kulturel of Penn State Berks.

In preparing my presentation, it became clear how important it has been to my career to not only take active part in international conferences, but to also live abroad. Sweden, in particular, is a very special country to me since while living there I wrote two books, Financial Networks: Statics and Dynamics with Stavros Siokos, and Supernetworks: Decision-Making for the Information Age with June Dong.

The former book I wrote while I held a Distinguished Chaired Professorship at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden and the latter while I was a Visiting Professor there several years after. During the writing of both of these books, my family and I lived at the Wenner Gren Center on Sveavagen in Stockholm.

The Wenner Gren Center is an apartment complex for a community of 150 families from around the globe, consisting of researchers, scholars, and medical professionals. It borders the gorgeous Haga Park. While I worked at KTH, my husband held an appointment at the Department of Electrical Systems Construction in Kista, which is also part of KTH.

Our daughter was only 2 years old the first time we lived in Stockholm and we enrolled her in the local daycare. In her daycare group there were children from her age until 7 and the care that she received there was outstanding. The children spend tons of time outside (remember that the Swedes have a saying that there is no bad weather, only bad dress for the weather). They climb rocks and trees in neighboring parks (believe me this raised my anxiety level a bit, but I guess these are useful life skills), go on excursions, including to musems, play, and just thrive. The daycare cooks prepared meals that included salmon, carrots, and dilled potatoes; Swedish meatballs, and delicious soups, and every child's birthday was celebrated in a lavish way with ice cream and lit candles. (Coming back to the US and the local preschool was a bit of a shock to my almost 3 year old at the time, when she had to brown bag her lunch).

Several of the daycare providers spoke English and there was one child from Japan who also was living at the Wenner Gren Center in my daughter's group. A boy of 7 named Sebastian, who originally was from Colombia, took special care of my daughter and also would often greet me at the door when I would come to pick her up and would motion to me as to her whereabouts. We would run into the parents and children in Stockholm outside of daycare hours and that helped us to feel part of a larger community. We were even invited to the homes of several of our daughter's fellow "classmates" years afterwards.

Above I have posted photos of the Wenner Gren Center, Stockholm, and my daughter's former daycare in Sweden.

The New York Times recently had coverage about the excellent parental leave policies in Sweden (which we observed while living there) and fathers taking advantage of them in an article entitled, "In Sweden, Men Can Have it All." This blogpost was partially inspired by that terrific article (plus who could have missed the publicity surrounding Princess Victoria's wedding that took place in Stockholm yesterday).

Sweden, I thank you for creating a society and system in which those who live there (even if only for a few months) can better balance work and family!