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.

Celebrating My 23rd PhD Student - Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour

Now is the time of the year in academia, when we mark major milestones, such as the completion of degrees by our students. Yesterday, was a very special day, during which we had the Isenberg School PhD robing ceremony of the class of 2022.

It was wonderful to take part in the ceremony and to speak about my 23rd PhD student, now - Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour! It was the first such in-person ceremony in 3 years because of the pandemic.

The program is below and includes the names of the 6 students from the Isenberg School that received the PhD this past year and the names of their dissertations and their PhD advisors. Impressively, 3 of the 6 are from my Operations and Information Management Department. Mojtaba's concentration in our PhD program was Management Science.

It was nice to see my Department Chair, Professor Senay Solak, at the ceremony and also my 24th PhD student - Dana Hassani.

Mojtaba is from Iran and, while at UMass Amherst, he taught several courses, and was President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter for 2 years, including 1 1/2 years during the pandemic. He was instrumental in organizing several very interesting virtual panels - one of which was with healthcare researchers from Mass General Hospital and another one was on a career panel. Plus, we had the honor of hosting Dr. Mauricio Resende, Principal Research Scientist of Amazon, in the Chapter's Speaker Series that I help the chapter to organize. Under his tenure as President, the Chapter was recognized with the Magna Cum Laude Award from INFORMS!

Mojtaba's PhD dissertation, "Essays on Supply Chain Economic Networks for Disaster Management Inspired by the Covid-19 Pandemic," constructed several highly relevant game theory models with applications, literally, "drawn from the news." His research, while at UMass Amherst, yielded 4 published papers and 1 published book chapter. I am delighted that he will be an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Texas A&M Commerce, starting this Fall. Below, are first pages of his papers.

As I said in my speech about Mojtaba at the ceremony, Mojtaba Salarpour is "standing on the shoulders of giants," since my academic genealogy, by way of my PhD advisor at Brown University, Professor Stella Dafermos, goes back to Maxwell, Newton, and Galileo - so- "no pressure!"

After the ceremony, it was great to enjoy the delicious food provided by UMass Amherst and to see many colleagues, students, and friends!

Congratulations to all the students, Class of 2022, now alums of their alma mater! With best wishes to you on your new journeys with a special congratulations to Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour! I remember fondly the delicious pistachios he brought for me from Iran when he arrived and after he landed in Boston Logan.

Valuable Teaching Assistant Experiences at Business Schools

It felt very good to submit my course grades last week,  especially since the final exam for my Transportation and Logistics class at the Isenberg School was quite late this year - December 22 and that was also the deadline for the course project papers.

The exam was from 10:30AM-12:30PM and the students had wanted cookies so I had baked (again) and brought the plate of goodies below. Good for motivation, as well. It was fun to see which students selected a cookie at the beginning of the exam, at the middle, or at the end.

The day was very cold and it was snowing and, luckily, I had my Teaching Assistant, doctoral student in Management Science, Deniz Besik, to assist me with proctoring the exam. This was extremely helpful since one student thought the exam was at 1:30PM and we realized this into the exam that the student was missing. A quick call and the student literally flew in and finished the exam in one hour with the help of a lot of adrenalin.

At the Isenberg School of Management, and many other business schools, part of the education of our doctoral students, in order to prepare them for careers in academia (or they realize that industry is better suited for them or another type of career post PhD), involves having them actually teach undergraduate courses. The doctoral students usually teach one course, for two or three semesters, beginning in their third year of the doctoral program. This is rarely done in engineering schools.

Prior to that, students can serve as a TA (Teaching Assistant) and/or an RA (Research Assistant). Being a TA can include holding office hours, helping the professor grade homeworks, and giving a lecture or two in order to gain experience. Such experiences help a student decide whether or not she/he is interested in teaching and research as a career. One learns lessons of responsibility, how to best explain course material to students during office hours, and how to evaluate homeworks. The personal interactions between students and the TA I believe are very important and I was pleased, but not surprised, how much my undergraduates appreciated Deniz during this past semester. Some students may prefer going to a doctoral student's office hours than to a professor's although I must admit that there were several students this past semester that were frequent visitors to both of our office hours. Many times, students want to chat and to also discuss their career paths and it is nice to have another set of ears and someone else to offer advice. Also, it may be helpful to have someone else explain some of the material, which may be done in a slightly different way. In addition, since our Operations and Information Management students at the Isenberg School are so bright and hard-working, and also intellectually curious,  they often are also interested in the TA's research as well as the professor's.

Being a TA builds a doctoral student's confidence and also helps the student prepare for teaching a course independently. In some years, I have had the TA sit in  my class as well, to learn how to respond to questions, how to lecture, etc. Some, based on this experience, become very eager to teach, and it is great to see them standing in front of a class to teach their first class at Isenberg! Some of our doctoral students in Management Science have become so successful in the classroom (one example is my PhD student, Shivani Shukla) that they have received the Isenberg Outstanding Doctoral Student Teaching Award, which is an annual award given out in the spring. Shivani last semester elected not only to teach a face-to-face class (Business Data Analysis)  but also a class online (Introduction to Operations Management) to garner additional experience. This certainly looks great on a cv when a doctoral student is on the job market!

In addition, while being a TA, and also having full responsibility for teaching a class, a doctoral student learns how to juggle both research and teaching, since without a dissertation, one does not get a PhD. Hence, important time management skills are learned and these help one in the profession after graduation.

After the exams were handed in last Thursday by the undergraduates, I took my TA out to lunch at the University Club at UMass Amherst. Also, visiting were my former PhD student, and co-author of the Competing on Supply Chain Quality book, Dr. Dong "Michelle" Li, and her fiancee, who is a postdoc at MIT. My daughter, who is a doctoral student at another university, also joined.

At the lunch I was presented with an MIT beaver, which we named "Bucky" and I think it is a great inspiration for continuing the hard work, which is also very enjoyable and rewarding!

Exciting Times at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst

Today was a picture perfect day - sunny but with a nice breeze and, after working on a supply chain paper with collaborators and finishing up some lectures for my Logistics & Transportation class that I will be teaching this Fall at the Isenberg School of Management, I decided to walk to UMass Amherst. It is about a 2 mile walk via the route that I took which is through the woods and fields and through campus. I needed to submit some class materials for copying and, although classes don't begin until September 6, I like to be prepared (way) ahead of time. This goes with my background in operations research and efficiency and also in emergency preparedness and supply chain disruption management!

The Isenberg School of Management is in the midst of a major new construction project - the addition of a $66 million Business Innovation Hub. We have even received a nice invitation for the groundbreaking celebration, which will take place on September 16, 2016 and will be officiated by our UMass Amherst Chancellor, Dr. Kumble Subbaswamy, and the Isenberg Dean. Dr. Mark A. Fuller.

The construction project has actually already begun and it will be an interesting year since all of my courses are in classrooms alongside of the area where the construction crew has set up equipment and a staging area. Fences blocking the area are put up from the Isenberg School to the Fine Arts Center which is resulting in new pathways and journeys for students, faculty, staff, and visitors and guests to navigate.

But these are exciting times and the project will take 3 years and will add much needed space for our activities. The Boston Globe already had coverage of the project.

And, that is not all that is going on in terms of construction. Today I had the pleasure of checking out our Operations and Information Management Analytics Lab which is on the ground level of the Isenberg School and should be ready for the first day of classes - September 6. Susan Boyer gave me a nice tour and the construction crew was busy with the wiring today.

There will also be a specially made podium in the room and two big screens.  The chairs are nice and light and easy to clean. The analytics lab was made possible by many generous donors, including alums, parents, and faculty.

Then it was time to check out my office which physical plant this summer replaced the flooring of, had my windows cleaned, and cleaned my Oriental rug, so it is sparkling for the students' arrival.

This year there are many events to look forward to, including the publication of my 14th book, Dynamics of Disasters: Key Concepts, Models, Algorithms, and Findings, which I co-edited with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos.

Wishing everyone a GREAT start to the new academic year!

Why I've Fallen in Love with Sweden

I've been in Gothenburg for 3 weeks now, my tenth trip here as a Visiting Professor at the School of Business, Economics and Law (Handelshogskolan)  at the University of Gothenburg.

I have been immerse in writing a book and also discussing research topics with colleagues and also talking with doctoral students.

Below I have a panoply of photos that show the charm of this city and Sweden.

My colleagues have standing desks (better for one's health):

At the same time, there is a folding seat in the elevators:

The Business School's cafeteria is fabulous but today was the last day of service of the academic year so I had to thank the chef and server.

 The parental leaves are great so there are a lot of hipster Daddies taking care of children:

The public transportation is fabulous and I have 4 choices for commuting to work: walking (a good couple of miles), taking the trolley, taking a bus, or the ferry. Today I took the ferry home and the ride was free! The view was pretty great, too.

Where else do you find color-coordinated blankets on chairs outside cafes in case you need them.

The nature and preservation of it are spectacular.

The high school graduation celebrations are so stylish:

 The fish and treats are delicious:

And were else can you find parts of a Viking ship (the museums are favorite destinations of mine)!