Outstanding Future BA (Business Analytics) Prof Workshop at the University of Iowa

I recently returned from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. I was there to give an invited talk on research at the 3rd Future BA (Business Analytics) Workshop. Many thanks to Professor Ann Melissa Campbell for inviting me and congratulations to her and to her workshop co-organizers Professors Kang Zhao and Beste Basciftci on the success of the workshop!

There had been 80 applicants with 28 selected and participating with advanced PhD students and postdocs from many universities taking part including: UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Clemson, University of Oklahoma, University of Buffalo, Harvard, MIT, and UMass Amherst.  It was my first time in Iowa and it was great to see the faculty and to also hear from the other invited speakers: Professor Tallys Yunes, who spoke on teaching, and Professor Bin Gu, who also spoke on research. 

Below is a photo that was taken of the group. It was quite remarkable that I had met several of the PhD students previously. 

I was also thrilled that my PhD student, Dana Hassani, took part. It was great to hear him give the elevator speech on his research and to hear from the others.

What impressed me was the enthusiasm and passion of the participants for their research, which I found uplifting and inspiring. 

The workshop kept us all very busy with the presentations, nice lunches and coffee breaks, networking sessions, and a dinner at a winery.

We could not resist taking a few more photos and the smiles on everyone's faces show how rewarding this workshop was.

I have posted the slide deck of my presentation here.

I wish all those who took part best of luck on their research and completing their dissertations, if they have not done so, plus successful academic job interviews!

I was very touched by the number of nice email messages I received from the PhD students and participants - they were very heartwarming and I appreciate the politeness and the reaching out.

This group has established a very nice and supportive network and I warmly thank Professors Campbell, Zhao, and Basciftci. It was also terrific to hear from Professor Barrett Thomas and to see Professor Thiago Serra, who has just joined the Tippie Business Analytics faculty after spending 5 years at Bucknell University.

Some background on this workshop on its website here.

My 18th PhD Student - Another Successful Dissertation Defense

Yesterday, was a very happy day since my 18th PhD student, Dong "Michelle" Li successfully defended her doctoral dissertation in Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management.

The title of her dissertation, which was nearly 250 pages long, was: Quality Competition in Supply Chain Networks with Applications to Information Asymmetry, Product Differentiation, Outsourcing, and Supplier Selection.

Michelle did a great job presenting, although we had to do some disruption management since in her scheduled room there was a final exam taking place and then an hour into her presentation in another room, another group of students entered for their final exams.

Michelle's full presentation can be downloaded here and it is stunning and her delivery was great, too.


Special thanks to the great committee members: Professor Adam Steven of my very own Operations and Information Management Department, Professor Hari Balasubramaian of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Professor Christian Rojas of the Resource Economics Department for all their valuable inputs and also for helping Michelle in her academic job search process. She has had more on-campus interview invitations and visits than any of my former students but I expect, given her offers, that she will soon reach closure.

Michelle has an outstanding record of publications in such journals as the Annals of Operations Research, the International Transactions in Operational Research, Computational Economics, Computational Management Science, Netnomics, and the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, with a series of other articles in review in other journals.

She has worked very hard as an Officer of the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and even taught 3 sections of our required Operations Management undergraduate course at the Isenberg School. Both of her parents are academics in China and she told me that 18 is a lucky number in China.

Great to see my academic offspring genealogy tree growing.

Interestingly, my 17th PhD student, Dr. Amir H. Masoumi, told me that 17 was always his favorite number.