Supernetworks and Critical Infrastructure at American Council of Engineering Companies Conference in Boston

Several months ago I received an invitation from Beth Larkin, who is a Vice President at HNTB, and also a UMass Amherst Civil Engineering alumna, as to whether I would be interested in speaking at the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Conference in Boston, October 14-17, 2015. 

In her message to me, Beth told me that ACEC is a national organization which represents the business interests of the engineering consulting industry. Beth is an ACEC/MA Past President.

Also, she added that: It is an industry that desperately could benefit from hearing from women thought leaders.  She also mentioned that she is part of a group of women who are trying to get more of the sessions to include women both as presenters/panelists and moderators.

Moreover, Beth wanted me to speak on Supernetworks and Critical Infrastructure.

How could I refuse such an invitation? In the meantime, I also ended up accepting an invitation to take part in the Amazon Supply Chain Optimization Summit this past week in Seattle and next week I am flying to Northwestern for a big book launch to be a panelist. One has to take advantage of opportunities!

I SO much enjoyed speaking at the ACEC conference (I was teaching on Thursday my Transportation and Logistics class, which always gets me very pumped up and supernetworks and critical infrastructure are themes that I am very passionate about).

The ACEC conference was at the Westin Copley Place hotel. The drive to Boston on Friday with the gorgeous foliage was smooth and lovely, the hotel was grand, registration was flawless, the exhibits were great, the snacks delicious and ample, and I enjoyed meeting so many professionals in this very important industry.

My presentation, The Application of Supernetworks to Critical Infrastructure from Transportation to Electric Power, can be downloaded here. 

Below are some photos from the ACEC conference with the top one of Beth Larkin with me after my presentation on Friday afternoon.

And, given that the location of the conference was Boston, it was fabulous afterwards to also walk (alot) in this great city!

And the grand finale was having dinner in the North End with tiramisu at Mike's Pastries!

Many thanks to the ACEC for such an exceptional conference experience!

Getting that Dream Academic Job - What We Learned from Isenberg School Panelists

Today was a jam-packed Friday with multiple strategic planning committee meetings plus a great event hosted by the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter -  An Academic Career Panel.

Coming back to the Isenberg School of Management were 2 of our PhD graduates in Management Science, Dr. Amir H. Masoumi, who received his PhD in 2013 and Dr. Davit Khachatryyan, who also received a PhD in Management Science from the Isenberg School in 2010.  Amir is now an Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at Manhattan College in NYC and Davit is an Assistant Professor at Babson College. Also, joining them on the panel was Dr. Chaitra Gopalappa, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Amherst who received her PhD from the University of South Florida, also in 2010.

The panelists were selected - many thanks to the Chapter President - Michael Prokle for all his efforts on this -  for their different trajectories in obtaining a tenure-track academic position.

Amir went directly into academia. Davit worked for PriceWarterhouseCoopers (PWC), the top consulting company, and was based in Virginia for 3 years, with projects in the healthcare, financial, and government sectors.  Chaitra had a postdoc at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for 3 years and then worked at the Futures Institute in Glastonbury, CT in healthcare modeling and policy.

I had the pleasure of introducing the panelists and Michael Prokle moderated the panel and the Q&A segment.

Some tips from the panelists on the academic job search:

From Amir: You need to be very organized and star the job search in latte summer. Amir, during his doctoral studies was not sure whether to pursue an academic or industrial position, but in teaching at the Isenberg School (we had a 2 course requirement at that time), he knew that he absolutely loved teaching and wanted academia.

He emphasized to be very prepared for interviews, both at conferences, and at the campus visits.  He advised the students to research the college/university webpages, that of the department that is interviewing you, and the faculty pages, as well. Also, study the institution's Wikipedia page, which will have what the place prides itself for. He would have campus sports topics, for example, that he could talk about during breaks in conversations at interviews. Amir (I am biased as to his great talents, poise, and personality, since I was his doctoral dissertation advisor) received his job offer from Manhattan College in December of that year, and couldn't be happier there. Amir's research is on perishable product supply chains with applications to blood supply chains and pharmaceuticals.

From Chaitra: Chaitra has taught at USF and really enjoyed it and while completing her doctoral studies looked at both academic and industrial positions. However, the prestigious CDC postdoc caught her eye and, although she was the only one hired on such a fellowship that year who had an engineering background, she very much enjoyed working across disciplines, and still does.  She emphasized the importance of having an "elevator" speech during your job interviews and the importance of doing your homework on the institution. She also said that one has to have a list of different questions to ask on the interview and these should be different for different audiences. You will be meeting with faculty, administrators, staff, and students and you need to be prepared.

From Davit: Davit during his doctoral studies had had an internship with GE. He is an applied statistician.and an expert on time series analysis. He wanted to experience practice and through his consulting work at PWC realized that much of the data was not well-organized and he had to spend a lot of time cleaning up data and also much more time computer programming than he had expected. He enjoyed working with clients and his expertise in analytics - probably one of the hottest areas now on the academic job market - enabled him to secure a faculty position at Babson, which was ideal for him, since he wanted a job in the eastern Massachusetts area. Davit admitted that Amir had helped him on the academic job market by offering him tips - although he did tell him that he had started the search "too late." Nevertheless, Davit got his dream job in an ideal location!

During the Q&A the importance of Resume (CV) building was emphasized from the first year of doctoral students, in terms not just with respect to classwork, but in terms of publications, conference presentations, and, also (I did not suggest this) taking part in UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter activities. Students get to meet and interact with our speakers, hold officer positions, practice their communications skills (soft skills were further emphasized by Davit) , and build up their resumes. Also, this is a very supportive and collegial group.

The students had prepared a wonderful reception beforehand - thanks to Sara Saberi, our treasurer, and we enjoyed the discussions afterwards, as well.

And, to top off a terrific panel, I took 5 students plus Amir out to lunch at the Blue Wall in the UMass Campus Center. The other panelists had to head back for meetings.

We topped off a great lunch with gelato for dessert!

Thanks to our panelists and the students for their great teamwork with the chapter!

Special Messages from Students (Unsolicited and When I Needed a Boost Badly)

In this blog, I often write about what a professor does on a given day and, despite regular teaching schedules, no two days are ever alike. Students are often told that the times that they are in college or in grad school are truly some of the best times of their lives and, sooner or later, they do come to this realization. Although there are numerous "bumps in the road" and the challenges of being a professor never stop, with the heavy loads of research, teaching, and onerous service responsibilities, every once in a while, one receives messages and feedback that make (some of) the workload worthwhile.

Just this week, during a period during which I was feeling especially "bounced around," I received messages from three former students, all of whom had taken my Transportation & Logistics undergraduate course at the Isenberg School. Two of these students will be graduating in May and one, a female, had graduated several years ago and has a marvelous position with a major consulting company. All majored in Operations Management.

One message from a former student said: I am graduating SOM in May. I have never enjoyed course material more so than that offered in your FINOP 341 class. I took it last semester and if you remember, I was the one who tried applying your course material to the transportation problem presented by ... I really, really want to get into the logistics field of business. In four years of class at Isenberg, and numerous internships and co-op opportunities, I have never really found any topic that satisfies me more than logistics and using mathematical algorithm(s) and applications to solve real life problems. The ability to enumerate a practical, real life problem and solve it using logic is among the most satisfying experiences I have encountered...

Another student, whom I nominated for a leadership award, and who will be receiving it soon at a reception at UMass Amherst, which his parents will be attending as well, and so will I, wrote: Great -- I tell my parents a lot about you so I look forward to introducing you! ... I really appreciate your help; it's great to be part of a large University and having someone who cares about you personally really making the large campus experience much easier and more intimate... I wont forget the people who have helped me so much especially as you have done!

Finally, a former student, who graduated a few years ago and has had a very successful professional career, wrote:

Hi Professor Nagurney,

How are you?

Just wanted to let you know that I will be in Amherst this weekend, probably heading up on Friday. I'll be speaking on an Alumni panel for Open House weekend. Let me know if you'll be around on Friday. I would love to stop by and say hello!

To the students who wrote the above messages, I give a BIG Thank You!

Some of my course lecture notes are available here.