Thanks to the Outstanding Guest Lecturers in My Humanitarian Logistics Class at the Isenberg School of Management

This spring, I am, again, teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. The class meets, bright and early, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:30AM.

I have amazing students this term - one of whom commutes by bus from Boston and many times he beats me to the classroom before 8AM. He is completing two Master's degrees this spring from UMass Amherst, as is another student in the class. The enrolled students come from the Isenberg School of Management, the Riccio College of Engineering, and the School of Public Health. The course is interdisciplinary since it requires a team approach to handle challenges associated with all phases of disaster management.

I work hard on making the course material very current and relevant. An aspect of the course that the students and I enjoy very much is the presentations by invited guest speakers.

So far this semester, we have had the great honor of having Mr. Jeff Hescock, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Environmental Health & Safety and Emergency Management at UMass Amherst, and Ms. Nicole Barbosa,  American Red Cross Community Disaster Program Manager - Western Massachusetts, speak in the class.

Mr. Hescock and his team have done outstanding work in support of the health and safety of all of us at UMass Amherst and even the neighboring community. Students very much relate to him and he shared with us his career trajectory, his focus on relationships and community building, and the numerous disasters that his team has responded to from the meningitis outbreak at UMass Amherst and the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent Olympia Drive fires in Amherst, MA. The latter fires burnt down a private apartment complex off-campus and one under construction, where the fire started. Over 200 students resided in the complex. Luckily, there were no injuries but housing had to be quickly found for those affected as well as the replacement of many essentials, destroyed in the fire.

Mr. Hescock spoke on February 12, 2026 this semester and,  since the date was close to Valentine's Day, I surprised everyone with these special cupcakes, which were enjoyed. 

I am a big proponent of writing Thank You letters to our guest speakers and in copying the letters to their supervisors and also share photos. 

Ms. Nicole Barbosa spoke to the class on March 5, 2026 and her passion in working for the American Red Cross (ARC) resonated with all of us. She has worked with Mr. Hescock, most recently, in the response to the Olympia Drive fires.  

The ARC has been very innovative and focuses much more now on recovery and reconstruction and also in providing victims of disasters financial support. The ARC has 7 levels of disasters. Ms. Barbosa told of one of their volunteers, who has been with the ARC for 44 years. The ARC relies heavily on volunteers for disaster response. Ms. Barbosa was such an inspiring guest speaker and an outstanding Professor for a Day. Our great Isenberg Dean Ann P. Massey signed the framed certificate that I presented her with.

I was touched by the beautiful letter I received from Mr. Ryan Avery, Mr. Barbosa's supervisor at the ARC, in response to my letter of appreciation for her guest lecture. Mr. Ryan Avery is a Regional Disaster Officer for the ARC.

We are very lucky to have in our community such incredible experts in disaster management.

Thank you for your service and for sharing some of your very valuable lessons learned with my students.

Thanking Dr. Khama Ennis for Her Brilliant Guest Lecture in My Humanitarian Logistics Class

 A very important feature of the Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class that I teach at the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst is guest lectures from outstanding practitioners. There are truly "heroes" among us. On March 27, 2025 (before I headed to the airport to fly to the University of Louisville to give an invited seminar), the students and I had the incredible honor of hearing Khama Ennis, MD, MPH, FACEP, FAIHM speak on her journey from being born in Jamaica to becoming a leading medical professional, heading the ER department at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, becoming a documentary maker, and even working at Bellevue Hospital in NYC during 9/11! The messages from students continue as to the impact that her guest lecture made on them. 

Dr. Ennis's intelligence, courage, creativity, and care for her patients and community are truly inspiring. We are incredibly lucky to now have Dr. Ennis with us at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Health Services. A short bio of Dr. Ennis can be found here: https://www.umass.edu/uhs/about/directory/khama-ennis-md-mph. Her first alma mater is also my alma mater - Brown University.  

Dr. Ennis's documentary, Faces of Medicine, "explores the paths of Black female physicians in the United States," of which there are very few: https://www.facesofmedicine.org/.  She kindly allowed us to view the documentary, which I found to be profound, inspiring, and, actually, very elegant. It was wonderful to hear from other female Black doctors, some of whom are in our region of western Massachusetts!

It was poignant to hear from a student in the class, whose family also comes from Jamaica, as to the impact that Dr. Ennis's presentation had on her.

It is such a small world. Dr. Ennis trained at MGH in Boston where our cousin, Dr. Toby Nagurney, was head of the ER and also a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School. I shared photos with him of Dr. Ennis with my students and he was delighted. He said that she has not changed at all.  

And, when, upon the return from speaking at a conference in Buenos Aires 15 years ago, and while taking a walk in our neighborhood, I slipped and fell where a pothole had been recently patched up, and our UMass Health Services, for some reason, could not treat the scar on  my bleeding forehead, I headed to the Cooley Dickinson ER. There, after about 4 hours of a grueling wait, which I blogged about https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2010/06/operations-and-emergency-room.html , Dr. Ennis came to the rescue and essentially "glued" the wound.

Thank you, Dr. Ennis, for all that you have done and are doing! We are so lucky to now have you at the UMass UHS (Health Services)!

In Appreciation of the Wonderful Guest Speakers in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

As the semester draws to a close, as well as the academic year, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the wonderful guest speakers in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this semester. In a class such as this, the students learn a tremendous amount from practitioners and, even more so, given their immense challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On February 18, 2021, we had the honor of hearing from Mr. Tim Pitoniak, who is a Regional Disaster Program Officer for the American Red Cross (ARC) in Massachusetts. Mr. Pitoniak spent the first 10 years of his Red Cross career in Greater New York where his focus was staffing, training, and partnerships. He assumed his position in Massachusetts in 2015 and has been the job director for multiple large operations, including the 2018 Lawrence gas explosion. He has regularly been deployed to national jobs, working in leadership roles for disasters all over the continental U.S.  and Puerto Rico. Mr. Pitoniak shared with us the challenges the Red Cross has faced in the pandemic and how it has been able to provide certain support services virtually, because of the need for social distancing. The students were amazed by the number of volunteers associated with the ARC and also how they are constantly adapting to provide a wide range of services, and not only to disaster victims.

On March 2, 2021, we were honored to have Dr. George Karagiannis Zoom in all the way from Athens, Greece for his guest lecture. Dr. Karagiannis is Greece's Deputy Secretary-General for Civil Protection, the US equivalent of Deputy FEMA Administrator. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Technical Officer at the European Commission Joint Research Center, where his area of expertise revolved around emergency management, critical infrastructure protection, and hybrid threats. Prior to joining the Joint Research Center, he was a Disaster Management Consultant. The title of his guest lecture was, "Humanitarian Needs Assessment & Information Management."  So many of the insights provided by Dr. Karagiannis resonated with the students, including his emphasis on the use of technology and even AI for needs assessment. And he also told the class that, despite what you see on TV and in the movies, one rarely gains much information from helicopter rides over disaster areas. Additional information and discussion during his great talk can be found on my blogpost here.

I am delighted that Dr. Karagiannis has accepted our invitation to be a plenary speaker at the next Dynamics of Disasters conference that I am, again, co-organizing with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, but this time it will be virtual. More information can be accessed here with additional information being posted in the coming weeks.

On March 11, 2021, the students and I were thrilled to have Ms, Dawn Brantley present to the class. She is the Assistant Director for Planning and Preparedness for MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) and was responsible for establishing  a program of COVID Isolation Hotels, which was also the topic of her presentation. The subtitle of it (and this spoke volumes) was: "building a plane while you fly it." Her presentation was absolutely mesmerizing. The initiative was made operational in 7 days and the logistics behind it were incredible, with so many issues such as food provision, laundry services, nursing care, and so much more needed. And to accomplish so much with attention having to be paid to COVID protocols. It was not easy getting certain hotels "on board," especially with some local communities not being supportive.

The dedication of Ms. Brantley to this important enterprise and that of her team were truly inspiring! The ARC had also been assisting in this endeavor so there was some nice synergy with Mr. Pitoniak's guest lecture. March 11, 2021, the day of Ms. Brantley's presentation,  was  the one year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the COVID-19 pandemic!

I cannot thank all the speakers sufficiently - they were fighting the pandemic on the front lines and still made time to help in the education of students.  They left a lasting impact and were part of a transformative educational experience. Each was presented with a special letter that I wrote as well as a certificate signed by our great Dean Anne P. Massey in appreciation.

On March 23, 2021, we had the Nursing Director Team from Cooley Dickinson Hospital present to my class. The title of the panel presentation was,  "Cooley Dickinson Hospital: A Year of COVID: Readiness, Response and Resilience." There were 8 speakers who shared with us their incredible work in transforming parts of the hospital to be able to handle more COVID patients and how personnel were retrained and needed PPEs acquired. 

No healthcare worker contracted COVID, which is, frankly, remarkable and such a relief. I wrote an earlier blogpost on the nursing team and sent my thank you letter to the Interim Director of Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Dr. Brown, who responded so quickly. Some of the lessons learned included the importance of communications and appreciating the workers' fatigue and challenges.

The team also shared a video with us and there was not a dry eye in the audience. I would like to, again, thank the incredible panelists: Angela Belmont, VP, Patient Care Services & Chief Nursing Officer, Lynn M. Grondin, Director of Nursing for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Mike Netta, Director of Operations for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Alexandra Penzias, Director of Nursing and Professional Practice Education, Sara C. McKeown, Nurse Director, Emergency Department, Ann LeBrun, Nursing Director, Critical Care Services, Margaret-Ann Azzaro, Director, Medical Surgical & Childbirth Services, Jacquelyn Ouellette, Director, Behavioral Unit.

On March 30, we had our very "own" Mr. Jeff Hescock join us. Mr. Hescock is the Executive Director of EH&S and Emergency Management at UMass Amherst. The students have been receiving many messages from Mr. Hescock since the pandemic was declared and he, along with his staff and Ms. Ann Becker, have been behind our outstanding COVID-19 testing and now vaccinations! On the day that he spoke, Mr. Hescock told us that UMass Amherst had by then done 400,000 COVID tests and 16,000 vaccinations! He emphasized the important role of testing, contact tracing, and also isolation quarters at UMass Amherst as well as the role of our nursing students in testing and vaccinations. It has been an extraordinary team effort and the students, the community at large, the faculty, and staff are so grateful for the outstanding work of Mr. Hescock and his team in keeping us safe.

The students, as well as I, learned so much from our guest speakers and each left an indelible impression on us. 

A Big Thank You to the Exceptional Nursing Leadership Team at Cooley Dickinson Hospital for Speaking in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

This past week, the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class had the great honor and privilege of having a panel of 8 nursing leaders from the Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts, speak virtually via Zoom. The topic of the panel was: Cooley Dickinson Hospital - A Year of COVID: Readiness, Response and Resilience. The presentations from 8 experts provided the class with extraordinary information and insights on this very challenging year and the tremendous response by the healthcare professionals at our local hospital! This was truly a transformative educational experience. We have heroes amongst us and we are so grateful to the Cooley Dickinson Hospital for the incredible care that they have provided over the past year in the pandemic. The panelists were: Angela Belmont, VP, Patient Care Services & Chief Nursing Officer, Lynn M. Grondin, Director of Nursing for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Mike Netta, Director of Operations for Perioperative and CVIR Services, Alexandra Penzias, Director of Nursing and Professional Practice Education, Sara C. McKeown, Nurse Director, Emergency Department, Ann LeBrun, Nursing Director, Critical Care Services, Margaret-Ann Azzaro, Director, Medical Surgical & Childbirth Services, Jacquelyn Ouellette, Director, Behavioral Unit.

Below, I have posted several of the slides that I captured from the panel that demonstrate the incredible creativity, work ethic, empathy, science-based decision-making, and so much more of these leaders and the staff, in general. They had anticipated the pandemic and had put processes in place ahead of time. It was  fascinating to see the reskilling (I have been publishing a lot on labor and supply chains in the pandemic), as well as the emphasis on the importance of communication and education. It was very interesting to hear about the repurposing of space to make room for more ICU beds and to hear the important role that association with MGH had in terms of provision of much needed PPEs. Amazingly, not a single staff person contracted COVID in the hospital. Plus, the importance of having an incidence command center was emphasized as well as having a single phone number that staff could use for questions. We even got to hear about the impacts of COVID on the behavioral unit and on the birthing unit. Tough for mothers to be separated from their babies. The situation was evolving very dynamically and learning about the new virus was taking place at an incredible pace.

It was also very special to hear how important it is to celebrate both small and big successes, which the staff did. This helps to improve morale. I don't think there was a dry eye among the students - I was shedding tears as well - when the panelists showed us a celebratory video of a patient, who had recovered from COVID, being discharged.

The students had, as an assignment, to writeup highlights and what surprised them from the panel and several wrote that this was the best guest lecture of their college education.

And, on March 25, 2021, I watched a very special remembrance organized by CDH, which was streamed on youtube, and which included Angela Belmont, as the master of ceremonies! 

It was very special, in the remembrance, to see Dr. Brown, the Interim President and CEO of Cooley Dickinson, to whom I wrote a thank you letter acknowledging the fabulous panelists! Our great dean, Dean Anne Massey, also signed Professor for a Day certificates for each panelist, which I emailed to them. In addition, a survivor of COVID, who was treated at the hospital for 30 days, and had been intubated for 2 weeks, spoke very movingly of the great staff and the fabulous care that she had received. Some news coverage of this event can be seen here, along with the link to the video of the remembrance.

The Book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions is Published by Springer Nature!

On March 12, 2021, I received an email from Springer Nature, which is the publisher of the book: Dynamics of Disasters: Impact, Risk, Resilience, and Solutions, that I had co-edited with Ilias. S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, and Arsenios Tsokas. The email was addressed to Frau Anna Nagurney and stated that the book had been published and was being shipped to my home. I hope that in future correspondence I would be addressed either as Professor or Dr. since my marital status should not be relevant, I would think. 

The next day, quite amazingly, a box with 3 copies of the new book was delivered to our door!

This book is a collection of 16 refereed papers, plus a preface, and is based on the latest Dynamics of Disasters conference that I co-organized with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos, which took place in Kalamata, Greece in 2019, plus several invited contributions. More information on this international conference can be found here. It was a wonderful conference and the third that I had the pleasure of co-organizing with my outstanding colleagues.

The conference attracted participants and speakers from many different countries, including Canada, Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, Nepal, and the US and was a fabulous forum for the exchange of ideas and scientific discussions at a beautiful venue. It is remarkable how our world has changed since due to the COVID-19 pandemic!

The edited volume contains results on many timely topics and the full list of chapter titles and additional information can be found on the publisher's website for the book. Some of the topics in the volume include: drones for disaster assessment, impact of labor disruptions to food supply chains in the COVID-19 pandemic, problems of human migration, infrastructure network resilience, cyber crises, the prevention of geological disasters, the use of blockchain technology, and many others!

The preface describing each of the papers in the volume and the Table of Contents, can be directly accessed here.

UMass Amherst produced this nice news article on our new book.

We are also in the planning stages for the 5th Dynamics of Disasters Conference, which is to take place in Athens, Greece, in mid July in 2021. More information on the conference can be found on the conference website.

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly added additional complexity to all phases of disaster management and, with disasters increasing in frequency as well as in negative impact, holding such a conference in 2021 is very much needed. Hoping that, with vaccinations and mitigation procedures, it can take place face to face.

The Dynamics of Disasters Conference in Greece and Multidisciplinary Perspectives

After the fabulous EURO Conference in Dublin, Ireland, which I wrote about in my previous blogpost, I journeyed to Kalamata, Greece with a stopover in London and then Vienna.

Along with my outstanding colleagues, Professors Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida and Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, I had organized another Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, July 1-5, 2019.  I'd like to also take this opportunity to congratulate Professor Pardalos on his receipt of the Humboldt Research Award. He was recently recognized in a ceremony with other Humboldt recipients in Berlin by Angela Merkel and the President of Germany!

The importance of multidisciplinary perspectives in all phases of disaster management from preparedness and mitigation to response was vividly illustrated at this conference by speakers from many different countries.

Kalamata is located on the Mediterranean sea and it is not an easy location to get to, but the beauty of the venue, as well as the fascinating scientific exchanges and discussions on a theme of great importance, made the travel worthwhile for everyone. The conference took place at the Elite Resort hotel in Kalamata. Below are some photos taken at the conference site and the immediately surrounding area. The local organizer was Sofia Papadaki, to whom thanks are extended!

The two previous such conferences that I also co-organized with Pardalos and Kotsireas resulted in two edited volumes published by Springer. Many of the chapters are enjoying multiple downloads and I have used several in the course: Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare that I teach at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst.

The delegates at this Dynamics of Disasters conference came from the USA, Canada, Greece, Italy, Poland, Germany, Korea, Japan, Russia, and Nepal, resulting in a very international experience and also an intense one since there is only a single track of talks. Below is a group photo taken at the conference venue of the delegates.

Professor Stephan Pickl of Germany, who is Chair of Operations Research at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, delivered an excellent lecture on a Smart Optimization Framework SARA, emphasizing the hyperconnectivity of critical infrastructure networks and stochastic elements. He is a renowned disaster management expert and involved in policy making as well in Germany.

Dr. Matsuno of Japan presented an excellent talk on the use of gaming on smart phones to inform and educate about disasters in Tokyo, including floods. There was also an excellent presentation on a course on emergency management developed by Dr. Assael, a chemical engineer from Greece, with input from students, and presentations on elegant network models for evacuation by Dr. Urmila Pyakurel of Nepal and colleagues and by her student Hari Nandan Nath. The use of DEA in regions for Russia for coping with disasters was presented by Sergiy Demin on work done with Dr. Fouad Aleskerov, and a description of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University in Massachusetts was described by Dr. Steven Flynn. A talk on disaster management at mass gatherings with a focus on the Athens Marathon was delivered by Dr. Angeliki Bistariki.

Professor Theodore Trafalis of the University of Oklahoma delivered an outstanding tutorial on machine learning for imbalanced data with applications to severe weather predication, including tornadoes.

It was a pleasure to listen to the very innovative and important research being conducted by colleagues in Italy, including that of Dr. Ugo Fiore and Salvatore Scognamiglio and colleagues, on the prevention of geological disasters, with even the use of a large-scale dataset on China.

The audience was very engaged and new friendships made and networks established.

It was fabulous to meet Dr. Steven Flynn, the founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University in Massachusetts.

Another wonderful, unexpected delight was to hear Dr. Angeliki Bistariki speak. She is a nurse and a PhD and, in her presentation on mass gatherings and the Athens Marathon, she had a video from our local news station in western Massachusetts - WWLP, moderated by Barry Krieger on how MEMA prepares for the Boston Marathon!

I mentioned in our discussions that I had hosted a MEMA official in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class last semester, Ms. Sara Zalieckas, who was responsible for safety at the 2019 Boston Marathon. My blogpost on her brilliant guest lecture can be viewed here.

It was also terrific to hear the talk by Dr. Georgios Tsaples and colleagues on system dynamics modeling of the consequences of extreme weather conditions on traffic in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. There were even insights as to modal choice and use (or not) of public transportation following.

Stamatis Papangelou reported on his research on land property data logging on a blockchain ledger, which is very innovative and enables the assessment of land property for the risk of natural disasters.

Below are photos taken with Professor Pardalos and his son, Akis (whom we have had the pleasure of seeing at numerous conferences around the globe), and with Professor Ilias Kotsireas and the "other" Professor Nagurney - my husband, along with conference assistants.

The structure of the conference included time for coffee breaks, nice meals, some touring, and a banquet with a view of the Mediterranean Sea.

This was our third time in Kalamata, Greece, and we were quite impressed by how much the surrounding area seems to have improved economically with new shops, restaurants, and many happy families strolling in the evening when the ocean breezes from the Mediterranean cooled off the area. Nice to even see bicycle lanes downtown.

I would be remiss not to mention the quality of the food in Kalamata - the fruits and vegetables are some of the most delicious ones I have ever eaten!

I have made my talk on game theory and disaster relief, co-authored with my doctoral student Mojtaba Salarpour and Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania, available for download to further discussions.

And, today, we took another group photo of those who were still able to be with us.

Special thanks to Professors Pardalos and Kotsireas as well as to Sofia Papadaki, and to all the delegates to our Dynamics of Disasters conference, for making it such a success. Best of luck with your continuing research!