Off to Stockholm to Speak at the Royal Institute of Technology -- KTH

It is a wonderful time to be living in Sweden (although, regretfully, Sweden lost its recent Euro 2012 soccer match, and we were hoping for some major celebrations).

It is close to midsommer, when the Swedes recognize the beginning of summer and have many get-togethers with family and friends, often in their summer homes, which tend to be small red cottages with, if possible, views of the sea.

When the sun is out, the Swedes are out and I love the emphasis on being outdoors in this country. Even in Gothenburg, where I have been for several weeks, the cafes have blankets on the chairs to warm us up because it is great to be sitting outside to dine.

Today, I will be taking the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm. My family and I lived in Stockholm, and I could not resist an invitation to speak at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), which had hosted me when my daughter was only 2 with visits back when she was 4 and 7. It will be wonderful to see former colleagues in transport, regional science, and optimization there. I also plan on going back to the Wenner Gren Center off of Haga Park, where we lived in Stockholm and made friends from around the globe  and which I have written about.

I will be speaking at KTH tomorrow on perishable product supply chains in health care and will be describing some of our recent research on oligopolistic competition in pharmaceuticals, blood supply chains, as well as medical nuclear supply chains, which combines operations research and network economics.

Sweden has always felt like my second home -- its natural beauty, architecture, emphasis on sustainability, elegant design, and its fascinating history and architecture plus its people and food captivate me.

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!

Busses from Massachusetts Off to the Vancouver Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, begin in less than 3 weeks. The above mittens my daughter received recently from our friends in Vancouver, the Wassermans, whom we met in Stockholm, Sweden, when we lived at the Wenner Gren Centre, a housing complex for 150 families from across the globe, who are engaged in research. Dr. Wasserman was conducting research at the Karolinska Institute, the renowned medical research facility, whereas my husband and I were based at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). The Wassermans also visited us when we lived in Innsbruck, Austria, when I was on my first Fulbright.

Although we won't (regrettably) be traveling to the Olympics (either as spectators or athletes) there is a local story to this international athletic competition.

Amazingly, there are busses that will be used for transporting the athletes at the Olympic games that are from our area in Massachusetts. The Greenfield Recorder is reporting that the Kuzmeskus Bus company of Gill, Massachusetts, will be providing 6 bus drivers and 3 busses to shuttle the Olympians! The company is owned by the Kuzmeskus family. Their grandson, Trevor, was a classmate of my daughter's at the Bement School and I recall how the first school birthday party that she attended was at the bus garage for Trevor's 6th birthday.

Appropriately, Trevor is a hockey player and my daughter is a figure skater (when she is not engaged in other sports and pursuits).

There is, however, not only a transportation connection between our area and the Olympics. Jon Quick, a former star hockey goalie at UMass Amherst, has been selected to the US Olympic hockey team.

With the US figure skating national competition now completed in Spokane, Washington, the various US Olympic skating teams (men's, women's, pairs, and dance) have also now been identified.

We wish all the athletes, as well as their coaches, family members, friends, and the organizers of these Olympics exquisite competition and experiences!