An Outstanding Transportation Conference in Switzerland with Photos

I am writing this blogpost from Zurich, Switzerland.

I am in Switzerland because of the 18th Swiss Transport Research Conference (SRTC), which took place May 16-18, 2018 in Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland.

When the invitation to give a keynote talk at this conference arrived months ago from Professor Kay Axhausen of ETH Zurich, I immediately accepted. The timing was ideal - just after our multiple UMass Amherst graduations signalling the end of another great academic year and before the CORS Conference in Canada and other exciting events. Also, since I love doing research in transportation and logistics and teach in this area, the conference theme was ideal.

The organization of the conference was outstanding and my itinerary was planned to the greatest detail and with fabulous care and thoughtfulness and I am incredibly grateful. I arrived in Zurich on Monday, after a very comfortable flight from Boston Logan on Swiss International. My hosts had even researched which would be the ideal seat for me in business class! On Tuesday, I met with Professor Kay Axhausen and doctoral students as well as a colleague from Denmark, Professor Otto Nielsen of DTU, whose seminar talk I very much enjoyed.

Another special treat, which demonstrates the serendipity of travel - I got to meet the nephew of Professor Dietrich Braesss of Braess Paradox fame, who is now at ETH Zurich and we took the photo below.

 Then we had a lovely dinner in the Old Town part of Zurich.

What would a transportation conference be without exploring and experiencing modes of transport? So, last Wednesday, a group of us convened at the Zurich Central Train Station to begin our journey to the conference site and we only had one change of trains (on our return yesterday we had two). The scenery was spectacular with lakes, mountains, valleys, and lovely homes as well as animals ranging from big cows to sheep.

We were met by a bus at the Lorcano train station, which drove us to a point on a mountain at which we disembarked and made our trek up to the conference venue, Monte Verita. The photo below I took from my villa hotel room.

I was so honored to open up the conference with my keynote talk: Perishable Product Supply Chain Networks: The Role of Transportation, which can be downloaded here.

The conference was organized with only two parallel sessions plus three keynote talks as well as discussion sessions. All the meals were included as well as breaks, which allowed for numerous opportunities for discussions and conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed brainstorming about the present and future of transport around the globe and expectations for impacts on cities, rural communities, and the world, with innovations in autonomous vehicles as well as shared mobility. It was fascinating to speak with researchers and doctoral students as well as practitioners from Europe, the US, and Asia.

The beauty of the venue was breathtaking, as was the elegance, and exceptional organization of the conference. 

Some other highlights included meeting a doctoral student from the University of Catania in Italy, who told me that one of his absolutely favorite professors was Professor Patrizia Daniele, with whom, coincidentally, I had published yet another paper just this past week.

Also, meeting Professor Norman Garrick from the University of Connecticut was very special. He is now on sabbatical at ETH, which is one of the top universities in the world.

 I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the keynote talks by Professor Caspar Chorus from TU Delft in The Netherlands and by Claudio Ruch from ETH Zurich.

We took the group photo below.

This was a conference that set new standards. I would also like to thank the sponsors for making this conference possible. I thoroughly enjoyed conversations with representatives from SBB (Swiss Railways) and from Swiss Roadways. The transportation experiences have been idyllic and the conference was as well. Kudos to Professor Kay Axhausen and also special thanks to his research assistant, Mr. Felix Becker.

What I Am Very Much Looking Forward to in 2018!

We are in the New Year and the frigid temperatures in the Northeast USA with a pending major snowstorm make this a good time to reflect on what to look forward to in 2018.

There is much on the horizon to be excited about and thinking of all of these forthcoming events and projects is warming me today!

I just signed off on a contract with Springer to produce another edited volume on Dynamics of Disasters, which I am co-editing with my great colleagues, Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University and Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida. This volume is a followup to our conference in Kalamata, Greece last summer and already we have some terrific contributions, all of which will be refereed. We had previously published a Springer volume in 2016 based on our conference in 2015 but, given the number of disasters, as well as the associated challenges for both researchers and practitioners, another volume is clearly warranted. Plus, working on this volume is very synergistic with the course: Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare that I will, again, be teaching this spring at the Isenberg School and am very excited about.

This will be a very busy, event-packed semester. As part of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series we will be hosting Professor Hari Balasubramanian of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Amherst on February 9. Professor Balasubramanian is an expert on healthcare and we are very much looking forward to having him kickoff our "spring" semester Speaker Series. Then, on February 23, 2017,  I am thrilled that Professor Jim Orlin of the Sloan School at MIT will be the guest speaker. Professor Orlin is renowned for his work on networks and is an INFORMS Fellow and I (and the students) are delighted that he will be coming to Isenberg! On March 23, 2017, we will welcome Dr. Les Servi of Mitre Corp, who will be speaking in our series. Dr. Servi is an INFORMS Fellow and one of the most active INFORMS members that I know. We are eagerly awaiting his visit and presentation. We are also finalizing a speaking date for Dr. Davit Khachatryan, an Isenberg PhD alum in Management Science, who has worked at PWC and is now at Babson College.  The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter started a fabulous initiative last semester of interviewing our speakers and posting the interviews on youtube. We hope to continue this new tradition this semester.

Given that I am the Faculty Advisor of the wonderful UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter I try to be present at all the speakers' talks and host the lunches as well. This always requires some juggling but as operations researchers we tend to be experts at scheduling. Below is a photo of this year's Chapter Officers and several members.

On February 16, 2018, I will be speaking at the Foisie School of Business at WPI, and was invited by my former doctoral student, Dr. Sara Saberi, who is now a professor there. She has terrific colleagues and I am looking forward to speaking there very much.

On February 24, 2018, the Isenberg Women in Business Conference will take place, always one of my favorite Isenberg events, which has become an annual tradition. The speakers, panelists, discussions plus lunch and snacks are all amazing!

And, on March 8-9, 2018, I will be a keynote speaker at the Vinepa conference in Italy and will speak on cybercrime and cybersecurity.

That will begin my "spring break" which will also include giving lectures at Lancaster University in England!

On April 6, 2018, I will be at the University of Wisconsin Madison to speak in the colloquium series at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. What a marvelous group of speakers this department has lined up and I am deeply honored to be part of their series.

I may have one or two conferences in April - still undecided as to whether I will be going or will have doctoral students go.

In early May, it will be that joyful time of year in which we see our students obtain their degrees at the Isenberg School and UMass Amherst graduation ceremonies - a true highlight of academic and personal achievements  as well as a very celebratory time for all concerned.

And, on May 16-18, 2018, I will be giving a keynote at the Swiss Transport Research Conference in idyllic Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland. The conference organizers are flying me business class and providing accommodations for a week, which is humbling, to say the least.

The summer will be busy with other opportunities, conferences, and, of course, a lot of research and mentoring of students, and, come Fall, the wonderful academic cycle will begin anew. September 11-13, 2018, OR60 is taking place at Lancaster University in England  and I will be one of three plenary speakers. 

Operations Researchers and the World Economic Forum in Davos

The 2014 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting takes place this week in Davos, Switzerland, January 22-25.

The theme this year is The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.

It's always interesting to see who will be coming to Davos from heads of state, to executives, to various thought leaders, academics, and humanitarians.

Just like one of my favorite professional societies, INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), the World Economic Form (WEF) also has Communities. 

I am very pleased that operations researchers are represented in two of the communities that  I am familiar with. Interestingly, I could identify 3 WEF individuals who are operations researchers and they are all in transportation & logistics!  If any of my readers know of other operations researchers, please let me know -- thanks!

Serving on the  Global Agenda Council  for Logistics and Supply Chain Systems are: Dr. Yossi Sheffi of MIT and Dr. Hugh Donald "Don"  Ratliff of Georgia Tech. I had last seen Yossi in Zurich, Switzerland, when we both were invited speakers at the great Vulnerability and Supply Chain Resilience Workshop  in September 2013. The workshop organizing committee is below

Organizing Committee

• Dirk Helbing (ETH Zurich) 
• Wolfgang Kröger (ETH Zurich)
• Benno Keller (Zurich Insurance Company)

and Dr. Dirk Helbing is also on the WEF Global Agenda Council! It is not far from Zurich to Davos!

You can find all the WEF global agenda council members here (alphabetized, for some reason, by their first names).

The World Economic Forum in January 2013 produced a nice report on Building Resilience in Supply Chains , in collaboration with Accenture. In it, you will see not only Yossi Sheffi's name  but also Dr. Jose Holquin-Veras' of RPI. We hosted Dr. Holguin-Veras in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series at the Isenberg School and I last saw him in Gothenburg, Sweden, where I hold a Visiting Professorship at the University of Gothenburg. He also was a panelist with Dr. Laura McLay, Dr. Panos M.  Pardalos, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, and Dr. David McLaughlin at the Dynamics of Disasters symposium last February that  I organized in Boston for the AAAS Annual Meeting.


Another World Economic Forum community is that of the Forum of Young Global Leaders and, among the group selected in 2013, is Dr. Soulaymane Kachani, who is originally from Morocco. He received both his Master's and PhD in Operations Research from MIT. I am a bit biased since his dissertation advisor was Dr. Georgia Perakis, who is technically my "academic sister," since she was a PhD student at Brown University working for Stella Dafermos (who was my advisor there, too) but then Stella died, so Dr. Tom Magnanti of MIT helped her to complete her PhD. Her PhD is from Brown.


Dr. Kachani is now a Vice Dean at Columbia and is in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Columbia had issued this nice press release on his participation in the WEF. He is a great choice. He was my host when I spoke at Columbia, in September 2006. I gave a seminar ther on Dynamic Networks  in the  Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and Decision Science, Risk and Operations Series.

You can nominate a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for 2014 here.

Isn't it great to have operations researchers on the world stage?!

Best of luck to everyone at the WEF in Davos.

Photos from the Fabulous Supply Chain Workshop in Switzerland

Yes, it was a whirlwind trip -- I flew from Boston to Zurich on September 10 and returned yesterday, September 15, with new research ideas, great new contacts, and visual scenes and experiences that were simply fabulous.

Below, I present, in photos, some of the highlights. The purpose of my trip was to deliver the talk Networks Against Time: From Food to Pharma at the Workshop on Supply Chain Vulnerability and Resilience. The Workshop was organized by the ETH Risk Center and the Zurich Insurance Group.

The view from my room at the Zurich Development Center (ZDC) (Lake Zurich and the Alps with the green landscape in the foreground):

Some of the art displayed at the ZDC, which was a former sanitarium and where Bircher invented bircher muesli -- delicious -- soccer fans will appreciate the photos, I am sure:

 Some photos from the conference:

 Scenes outside the workshop venue:

Thanks to the organizers of this Supply Chain Workshop for such an extraordinary workshop in a perfect venue!