Humbled to Be a Highly Cited Female in Operations Research (OR)

While "diversity" now is being ostracized in the US with the new administration, scientific interest in gender issues continues to be quite intense.

One of my primary fields is Operations Research (sometimes referred to in the UK and Europe as Operational Research). It is a discipline that focuses on quantitative methods for decision-making and I love it!

A fairly recent paper, entitled, "Women Just Wanna Have OR: Young Researchers Interview Expert Researchers," co-authored by Lavinia Amorosi, Rossana Cavagnini, Veronica Dal Sasso, Martina Fischetti, Valentina Morandi and Alice Raffaele, and published in 2021 in Operations Research Forum, interviewed "a group of prominent female professors and affirmed researchers in STEM belonging to different generations, with dissimilar careers and experiences." I was delighted to be interviewed and the article may be accessed here:   https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43069-020-00039-8

In 2024, the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS) published its first discussion paper (suggesting the relevance of the topic): "Gender Equality: Opportunities and Challenges for the OR Community," by Paula Carroll and Annunziata Esposito Amideo: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2024.2343343 This article was followed by a commentary to which twelve individuals (not all female) contributed. Many of the contributors I am delighted to know professionally. I very much enjoyed writing my contribution to the discussion. The commentary can be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2024.2344969

One theme that caught my attention was citations of the publications of female authors and that there were (very) few females in the top 100 authors in Operations Research.

I am humbled that I am on the list as is Grazia Speranza (who also contributed to the JORS commentary) and whom I recently saw at the EURO Conference in Leeds! 

I am number 56 out of the top 100:

So there are two females in the top 100 authors in OR according to Google Scholar.

And, by the way, I had the pleasure of handling the nomination of Grazia for INFORMS Fellow and she was elected in 2024. We celebrated at the Seattle meeting and you can read my post here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-outstanding-informs-conference-in.html

I am standing next to Grazia in red in the top photo on the left of the above collage. Joining us are Celso Ribeiro (who I also saw in Leeds) and Hani Mahmassani (I also nominated both of them) and Janny Leung, who was also at the EURO Conference.

I believe that awareness will generate action but, most importantly, we need to support one another and to celebrate successes. The field of Operations Research is incredibly rich in both theory and application and is highly relevant in addressing many of the world's most important problems. We need to welcome and work with all the great minds in our profession!

And, for some additional reading, which is quite provocative and entertaining, please see the article, "If Dantzig had a Sister," by Alice Raffaele and Anand Subramanian, published in ORMS Today: https://pubsonline.informs.org/do/10.1287/orms.2024.01.06/full/ Anand is the genius behind the Subject_to video interviews of Operations Researchers. I am a huge fan of his and treasure the photo below taken at the EURO Conference in Leeds.

New Year - New Country - Thanks to the Congreso Futuro in Chile

On the first day of the New 2019 Year I thought it appropriate to write about what I am very excited about - and that is my forthcoming trip to a country I have never been to before - Chile!

I have a connection to that country since for two years my room-mate at Brown University during my undergraduate days was a Chilean, Teresa Davila, who was also an Applied Math major and lover of Operations Research. This former ballerina was a member of the Brown women's crew (rowing) team while I ran track and cross country and also double majored.

The invitation to speak in Chile came last April with an email message and an official letter on behalf of Senator Girardi, President of the Senate's Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission in Chile, to participate as a Guest Speaker in the upcoming VIII Futures Congress (Congreso Futuro in Spanish), "a global flagship knowledge engagement event set to take place between the 14th-20th January 2019". Since the establishment of  the Futures Congress in 2011, it has become a major forum in Latin America for addressing the many challenges that humanity is faced with and brings together scientists and humanists to discuss how we can achieve a better future. Our itineraries are planned with great attention to detail with lunches and dinners organized as well as excursions for those interested.

I am so honored and thankful to be representing the Isenberg School of Management and the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the Futures Congress!

The Futures Congress takes place in Santiago, Chile, along with other locations in Chile and the venues are magnificent, as evidenced from past congresses.

I will have the pleasure of speaking in the thematic session: Shaping Our Lives, Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World with renowned scientists that I am very excited about meeting: Dr. Daniel Hurtado of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Dr. Geoffrey West of Stanford University, and Dr. Robert Sutor of IBM!  I will give the talk: The Era of Supernetworks.

Subsequently, I will speak in Valparaiso at a full day event and the title of my talk there, which will be followed by a panel discussion, is: Women in Science: A Personal Journey. This event will take place in the Salón de Honor Congreso Nacional. I have thoroughly enjoyed preparing my talks and am in the final stages of polishing them.

Also speaking at the Futures Congress is the Nobel laureate in physics Dr. Michael Kosterlitz, who had an office across the hall from my office in Barus and Holley when I was a PhD student at Brown University! And, as for other serendipitous connections, Dr. Susan Fiske of Princeton University will also be speaking at the Futures Congress. She was formerly a faculty member at UMass Amherst and we have mutual close friends. I am sure that I will come across other speakers with which there are surprising and delightful connections!

It is truly remarkable how wonderful and linked the scientific community is even across disciplines - last year, Dr. Alyssa Goodman of Harvard University was a speaker at the Congreso Futuro. She co-directs the science program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard where I have been a Science Fellow and have also spent most of my past two summers!

I have been brushing up on my Spanish, even during the holiday festivities during this past week and will be also speaking with my Isenberg School of Management Marketing colleague, Dr. Francisco Villarroel  Ordenes, who is now in Chile (but, sadly our times there will not overlap).

Many thanks to the organizers of the Congreso Futuro for inviting me. I am very much looking forward to what will be an extraordinary intellectual, social as well as cultural experience!

We Need More Women in Science and Technical Fields

In a wonderful article in The New York Times, entitled, Risk and Opportunity in the 21st Century, it is stated that: In the years to come, the people who master the sciences will change the world — and most likely command the big paychecks.

The article goes on to discuss what are possible risks and opportunities in science with a focus on females. The article talks about the challenges facing females in science and that the number of females in computer science programs, mathematics, and branches of engineering has declined (a very sad state of affairs).

I very much appreciated the following quote in the article: Women need science and science needs women, said Béatrice Dautresme, chief executive of L’Oréal Foundation and architect of the L’Oréal-Unesco for Women in Science awards. The L'Oreal-Unesco awards recognize five scientists each year from across the world. Dautresme was also quoted as saying: If women can make it in science, they can make it anywhere.

Of course, science, as any field, requires hard work, excellence, and true dedication, if one wishes to succeed in it. There continue to be barriers to women in science and programs that recognize excellence and support researchers need to be nurtured. We also need more female role models and to show young females still in school the beauty and relevance of science (and engineering and even technical areas of business).

My areas of research and teaching include management science / operations research, which are quite technical and mathematical, but the applications are so fascinating that breaking barriers yields personal satisfaction and, sometimes, even rewards. But one must do the work for the love of research and discovery. If we don't generate interest in science and technical fields in all, irrespective of gender, we, as a nation, will lose in the 21st century. This is potentially a very frightening and sad scenario unless we act collaboratively now to generate interest and passion for science in the youth of America. We can't be outsourcing knowledge creation and innovation.