My "Labor and Supply Chain Networks" Book is Published!

I was delighted to receive a shipment of my new book, "Labor and Supply Chain Networks," yesterday. The book was published by Springer Nature and contains 12 chapters, with Acknowledgments, Preface, and an Appendix.

Writing this book was a true labor of love. The book is dedicated to: essential workers and to those fighting for freedom in Ukraine, with gratitude for your heroism. It is the result of many years of  research and writing, accompanied by adrenaline during the COVID-19 pandemic and now the war on Ukraine. 

Springer has produced both hardcopy and online versions, with more information available on the Springer website for the book. I am indebted to Elizabeth Loew of Springer for her outstanding shepherding of this book project with publication even ahead of schedule!

The front matter for the book, with the Preface and the Acknowledgments, is available for free download. In the Acknowledgments, I thank the great Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey, the two Operations and Information Management Department Chairs: Professors Bob Nakosteen and Senay Solak, over the period that this book was written, as well as the Vice Provost for Global Affairs at UMass Amherst Kalpen Trivedi, for his leadership of international programs. With the war in Ukraine still raging, and with my service for the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine a very important part of my life, both professionally and personally, I also thank the President of KSE Tymofiy Mylovanov and Rector Tymofii Brik plus KSE colleagues Oleg Nivievskyi and Nataliia Shapoval, who have done extraordinary work on documenting the impacts of the war. 

Collaborators throughout this challenging time have made work fascinating and enjoyable. I am indebted to Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy, Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Professor Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, Professor Sara Saberi of WPI, Professor Pritha Dutta of Pace University, and Professor Mojtaba Salarpour of Texas A&M Commerce. All are Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks that I founded in 2001 and continue to direct. Acknowledgments are also extended to my long-time collaborators on Dynamics of Disasters conferences and co-edited volumes: Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida and Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. I also thank my PhD student Dana Hassani.

Of course, writing a book requires a great deal of focus and time and dedication, and I am so thankful to my family for their support. And, in the pandemic, having a professional society such as INFORMS that helped us to stay connected and informed and also advocated our work to the media and government, was incredible supportive and sustaining.

Workers need to be valued, supported, recognized, and paid for their contributions. Supply chains would collapse without them, as we have seen. I hope that my book, which contains chapters on both profit-maximizing firms and non-profits, including blood service organizations and those in emergency response and disaster management, helps in decision-making as well as policy-making. I believe that students will also appreciate and gain value from the material therein.

I hope that this book will inspire further research as well as implementation in practice of results therein from wages that should be paid to laborers to the productivity investments that should be made for the benefit of workers, consumers, firms, and organizations.

After all, as I wrote in my ORMS Today invited essay (thank you, INFORMS): In the End,  It's All About People!

Busy Week with the EURO 2021 and the Dynamics of Disasters Conferences

My Supernetworks group has been hard at work preparing for conferences that we will be speaking at. This Sunday the EURO 2021 Conference begins. It is a hybrid conference, based in Athens, and goes from July 11-July 14. On July 16, the 5th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters begins and will last through July 18. It was originally scheduled to be in person and also in Athens, but has turned virtual. I am co-organizing the latter conference with Professors Kotsireas and Pardalos and Vogiatzis with great support from Sophia Paradaki.

Interestingly, back in the summer of 2019, I spoke at EURO Dublin and we organized also a Dynamics of Disasters (DOD) Conference, which took place in Kalamata, Greece! I blogged about the great Dublin conference, where many photos can also be found.  Please also check out my post on the DOD conference in Kalamata, which was a big success and we even edited a refereed volume, which was published by Springer.

The 2021 EURO Conference has a very busy and interesting program. I was delighted to be invited by Ruth Kaufman to give a lightning talk in the OR and COVID session in the Making an Impact Stream. The Making an Impact Stream I spoke at (on a panel) in Dublin and enjoyed the experience and discussions immensely. My lightning talk is entitled, "OR and COVID-19: From Research to Policy." Also, our latest work on game theory and disasters will be presented (the talk has been recorded by my PhD student, Mojtaba Salarpour, since it was placed in an invited session but at 5:30AM EDT). The presentation is based on a paper of ours published in the International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE) in 2021. We thank Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business for inviting us to speak in this Humanitarian Operations session that she organized for EURO 2021.

One can definitely see that we have been heavily engaged in research on various supply chain network themes in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Dynamics of Disasters Conference has an excellent line-up of plenary speakers: Professor Maria Besiou and Professor Oleg Prokopyev plus Dr. Stavros Siokos and Dr. George Karagiannis.

Our presentations at the DOD conference will include research done with Professors Deniz Besik and Pritha Dutta on food supply chains and disruptions in the pandemic; on convalescent plasma, based on a paper with Professor Pritha Dutta, recently published in Operations Research Forum, and on refugee migration networks - work done with Professors Patrizia Daniele and Ladimer S. Nagurney and based on a paper published in the Journal of Global Optimization. Mojtaba will also present our paper in IJPE presented at EURO 2021. I am looking forward to many interesting discussions and idea generation!

Looking forward to "seeing" many wonderful colleagues at these exciting conferences!

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.

Celebrating my 22nd PhD Student - Dr. Deniz Besik

The Covid-19 pandemic has called for new types of celebrations of the successes of our students, including virtual graduation ceremonies at colleges and universities.

Last Friday, UMass Amherst had  an exceptional celebration via a video tribute that included many luminaries from Massachusetts from politicians, to an astronaut and UMass Amherst alumna, as well as celebrities.

Last Friday, the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst also hosted a virtual celebration via Zoom for our PhD graduates, and, among the 9 receiving their PhDs, was Deniz Besik.

Dr. Deniz Besik was my 22nd PhD student and her concentration at the Isenberg School was Management Science. I have chaired the doctoral committees of 12 females and 10 males.

Dr. George Milne, our PhD Director at the Isenberg School, organized the event, with assistance from Mike Korza.  Deniz's family was able to Zoom in from Turkey.

It was such a pleasure to write about Dr. Besik, who came to our program from Turkey, having worked also in Germany. My tribute to her is below. She will be joining the faculty of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond in Virginia, in the Fall.

The full brochure with information on all of our PhD graduates can be accessed from the Isenberg website here.

The Sunday before, Deniz and I put on our robes and, with help from friends, had the photos below taken, while practicing physical/social distancing.

Deniz had 6 papers published while a PhD student, which is a remarkable accomplishment, in such journals as the European Journal of Operational Research, the Journal of Global Optimization, and Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. Her multidisciplinary research on perishable food supply chains, with a focus on quality, as well as economic policy instruments such as tariffs and quotas, yielded fundamental tools as well as insights and helped to identify who wins and who loses in the ongoing trade wars, made even more relevant now with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hard to believe that Dr. Besik defended her dissertation on March 6, 2020, just a few days before the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 pandemic and the world changed.

Deniz excelled in the three dimensions of research, teaching, and service, all very relevant to her future success in academia. Deniz served as the President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and was a very engaged and loyal member. The chapter's webmaster, Haris Sipetas, posted a tribute to her, and to her two fellow PhD graduates in Engineering: Rodrigo Mercado and Ekin Koker.

Congratulations to Dr. Deniz Besik! We look forward to celebrating your PhD graduation face to face before too long. Wishing all the 2020 degree recipients all the very best! Your grit and resilience will get you through these challenging times.

Bravo to Deniz Besik on Her Successful PhD Defense

Yesterday, was a very special day. Deniz Besik, who is my 22nd PhD student, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation at the Isenberg School of Management. The title of her dissertation is: "Essays on Competitive Perishable Food Supply Chain Networks: From the Impacts of Tariffs and Quotas to Integration of Quality." I had the pleasure of chairing her dissertation committee, which consisted of Professors Ana Muriel and Hari Balasubramanian of the College of Engineering at UMass Amherst and Professor Priyank Arora of my department at the Isenberg School.

Although the defense took place at 3:30PM on a Friday afternoon, the room was packed with Deniz's friends and colleagues and guests who had come to support her. Some had traveled from Boston and NYC to come to support her. Dr. Pritha Dutta, who was my 21st PhD student, and is now a Professor at Pace University, came from NYC.

Deniz in 4 and a half years as a doctoral student published 6 co-authored papers, which is an incredible accomplishment. Below are images of first pages of some of the articles.

Deniz was recognized for her research with the 2019 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award from the Isenberg School and took part in the INFORMS, POMS, and DSI doctoral colloquia. And, we recently heard that she was elected into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. The ceremony will take place in early April and the UMass Amherst graduation in early May (assuming such events will be able to proceed, given the coronavirus).

The audience had great questions, given the timeliness of the dissertation as well as the clarity with which Deniz presented the results in her dissertation. Below is a photo of now Dr. Deniz Besik with her committee members after her defense.

And we managed to take a photo of some of the folks in the audience who stayed until after 5PM to congratulate her.

She was presented with flowers and I also gave her a gift.

Then it was time for a celebratory dinner, which took place at Judie's in downtown Amherst.

Followed by a very special dessert with candle.

I might add that Deniz during her doctoral studies also taught classes and she even served as the President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. She has accepted a tenure track Assistant Professorship at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond in beautiful Virginia. The rewards of being a faculty member are many, but one of the best is seeing a very deserving and hard-working student achieve her dreams. We all wish Dr. Deniz Besik much continuing professional and personal success as she begins a new chapter as an Assistant Professor!

A Big Thank You and Congratulations to the Montreal Operations Research Student Chapter

The invitation arrived on April 22, 2019 - towards the end of the Spring semester.

The event that I was invited to speak at was to take place on May 15, 2019, as part of the Optimization Days conference in Montreal, Canada. The conference was at HEC.

Although the date was just a few days past the UMass Amherst graduation ceremonies as well as the POMS conference in Washington DC, I accepted quickly, since it was to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the Montreal Operations Research Student Chapter. I am a big proponent and supporter of INFORMS Student Chapters and have been the Faculty Advisor to the UMass Amherst one for 15 years (that translates to 30 semesters of activities, including hosting of speakers). The Montreal Chapter has over 270 members across multiple universities in the area. It was co-founded by a group of students, including  Hyame Alameddine and (now) Dr. Carlos Zetina, both from Concordia University. Dr. Zetina was the recipient of the INFORMS Judith B. Liebman Award.

The invitation, which came from Hyame Alameddine, the Chapter's Vice President, said, in part:

Dear Prof. Nagurney,

On behalf of the Montreal Operations Research Student Chapter (MORSC), we would like to invite you to Optimization Days <https://symposia.cirrelt.ca/JOPT2019/en/home>  2019, Montreal on May 15, 2019, to deliver the keynote addressing a topic of your choice for our third-anniversary event which we will celebrate during Optimization Days. Given your pioneering work in operations research; we hope you can honor us with your presence and words as we present our chapter's achievements and list of upcoming events to our members, industry partners, well-known Montreal researchers and representatives of our umbrella institutions. Our organization would be happy to cover the costs associated with your travel and accommodation.

Established in May 2016, MORSC is a multi-university, multidisciplinary, graduate student association chartered under the Canadian Operations Research Society (CORS) and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). Our mission is to create a collaborative community of Montreal graduate students working on Operations Research topics. Our emphasis is on knowledge sharing and networking among members from various disciplines. We organize tutorials, workshops and panel discussions for students to stay up to date on the field. We also organize student research seminars in collaboration with GERAD and CIRRELT for students to showcase their work and a speaker series for members to learn from highly respected experts in the field. We have created our website (www.mtl-students.com>) that serves as a reference for upcoming events and as an online library of materials on Operations Research (www.mtl-students.com/archive>). In 2017, MORSC received the INFORMS 2017 Student Chapter Annual Award at the cum laude level  and in 2018, it received the INFORMS 2018 Student Chapter Annual Award at the Magna cum laude level.
 
I offered several topics that I could speak on and they selected the following:

My presentation can be downloaded here. Speaking to this group, which has achieved an immense amount during 3 years, was a great honor, and I wanted to congratulate them and to offer my support. Coincidentally, the first conference that I ever attended as a PhD student was in Montreal and it was with my Brown University PhD dissertation advisor, Dr. Stella Dafermos. And, amazingly, I got to stay in the very same hotel, The Terrasse Royale!

The attention to detail was extraordinary, with posters disseminated about my talk, a delicious cake prepared, and even a request for questions from me about my presentation, with prizes!

 My questions to the audience (I was delighted that even undergraduates came):

 1. What city was the venue of the first conference that Anna Nagurney attended as a PhD student?

2. Which of the following are NOT part of the math academic genealogy of Stella Dafermos and Anna Nagurney:

Maxwell, Galileo, Laporte, Newton?

3. The famous Braess paradox (1968) paper was written in what language?

4. Name TWO perishable products in healthcare.

5. What was the name of the best selling cholesterol reducing drug sold by Pfizer that lost its patent rights in 2011?

Bonus question:

What brand of European chocolates are sold at the nearby Royal Terrasse Hotel in Montreal?

After my presentation, I presented the Chapter with a birthday card and certificate and they presented me with a lovely plaque (so thoughtful and so appreciated).

 

Also, at the event, many students were recognized for their great writing and papers!

Above I am standing with the Chapter Officers as well as the Chapter's Faculty Advisor, Professor Daria Terekhov. Very cool that, among the officers, is a former classmate of my PhD student, Deniz Besik - Başak Tozlu.

The cake was as delicious as it was beautiful!

Many thanks also to the excellent photographers! The group photo is a very special memento. I remember fondly many selfies taken with the expert - Dr. Carlos Zetina at INFORMS conferences!

Also, it was a delightful surprise to see  Dr. Alelsandr Kazachkov there (the recipient of the 2018 ICS Best Student Paper Prize, whose committee I chaired), Professor Michel Gendreau, and a University of Maryland  Smith School colleague - Professor Raghavan. I also saw Professor Gilbert Laporte's photo on a nice screen - he was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Sorry to have missed Professor Hani Mahmassani, who was a plenary speaker.

And, of course, I had to purchase Leonidas (Belgian) chocolates in the shop at my hotel to being back to Amherst!

Also, I had some lovely long walks in the area.

Congratulations to the MORSC Chapter Officers and members on all of your achievements and thank you for the outstanding hospitality - you set new standards! Wishing you all much continuing professional and personal success.

Exciting POMS Conference in DC with Great Talks and Social Events

The 30th Production and Operations Management (POMS) Conference has now come to an end. It was a wonderful experience with over 2,000 conferees converging on Washington DC for the conference.

It started with some drama, because of the weather on Thursday, May 2, with big storms and temps in the 90s in DC. This resulted in flight delays for some including one of my doctoral students, Deniz Besik, who had a 4 hour delay from Bradley Airport to Reagan National Airport. The next morning, we had the first of a series of papers to present, beginning in the 8AM session. She made it to her hotel past 1AM and managed to register and to show up on time - clearly a sign of grit and success.  Some of us had taken earlier flights so we were spared delays. Also, Deniz was selected for and took part in the POMS Doctoral Colloquium on Saturday. Special congratulations to her since on Thursday afternoon, she was recognized by the Isenberg School of Management with the 2019 Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award - quite the accomplishment, since our school has 7 different departments. I am very proud of her and very happy for her. Below is a photo that was shared on Twitter of Deniz with the award and with PhD friends: Rodrigo Mercado, Pritha Dutta, and Destenie Nock. Both Pritha and Destenie are receiving their PhDs at UMass Amherst ceremonies later this week and are off to academic careers. I am sure that they will be amazing professors at Pace University in NYC and at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, respectively!

Our papers at POMS were presented in sessions on economics and operations management; healthcare, and humanitarian operations. The second and third presentations below were based on papers recently published in the journals Omega and the International Journal of Production Economics, respectively.

We have posted our presentations on the Supernetwork Center website.

The quality of the presentations in all sessions that I attended was excellent (generating many ideas and even possible new collaborations). It was a delight to see colleagues from Canada, Turkey, the UK, and across the US. Because of the location and also timing of the conference, it was a draw for many first timers and also quite a few INFORMS members, which was great. As a memento, we had photos taken of the speakers at the first session and then of even the audience as well as speakers of the third.

It is truly fabulous to see the interest in a spectrum of highly relevant topics for both research and practice!

In the below photo I am standing with Pritha Dutta, who is my 21st PhD student. She has done fundamental work on game theory and blood supply chains.

Socializing and networking are important components of any conference, as is reconnecting, and I love the serendipity of encountering colleagues and friends.

Plus, is is always thrilling to see the great Springer editors and, in this case, Matt Amboy, at the exhibits.

Of course, what would a conference in DC be without some exploring from Georgetown to the fabulous art museums. Luckily, Saturday's weather was ideal for walking.

It was a delight to see Renoirs, Van Goghs, and Monets, as well as the portraits of President Obama and Michelle Obama. I was captivated by the audience viewing the latter - so many women!

My tradition at almost any conference is to treat a group that includes Supernetwork Center Associates, some of whom were my former doctoral students at the Isenberg School of Management, and friends to a dinner. On Saturday evening we enjoyed a scrumptious dinner at La Tomate, in proximity to the Hilton, which was the conference hotel. The food was magnificent and the company event better! We had an area just for us, which was very cozy.

After desserts, we took a group photo.

It is so rewarding to see my former PhD students, now professors at wonderful universities and colleges, thriving both professionally and personally.

And on a very rainy Sunday, the conferees and guests convened for a lavish awards luncheon and service was very prompt - extraordinarily efficient, but, then again, it was a POMS conference.

A special thanks to the "other" Professor Nagurney, for not only being a co-author of our first paper presentation at POMS, but for also helping me with the luggage and logistics.

Congratulations to the organizers of the 30th POMS Conference on its success!