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.

Excited to Be Teaching My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

The morning temperatures in Amherst, MA have been below 0 degrees the past few days and it has been a challenging winter with a lot of snow.

However, yesterday the new "spring" semester at UMass Amherst began and it was energizing to meet the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class. The course meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:30AM at the Isenberg School of Management.

The students come not only from the business school but also from the School of Public Health, the Riccio College of Engineering, and even the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences.

I arrived in the classroom at 8:00AM because I wanted to make sure the technology was working well.

The first student arrived shortly thereafter and he drove from Boston (about 2 hours). He is working towards 2 Master's degrees at the Isenberg School - an MBA and a Master's in Business Analytics. Another student is also working on these two degrees and has 3 children under the age of 4. I was so impressed and inspired by the students - I asked them to share some background about themselves and their interest in the course, and also to provide a "fun fact."

One student is a lawyer and several of the students have traveled widely even during the January break (to Croatia and Japan). One of the students is on an athletic team and will be traveling a lot to games.

I told the students that I have some excellent guest speakers lined up and am also planning on a field trip. They were very excited about having a field trip.

The students give us hope (much needed these days).

I am very much looking forward to an engaging and exciting semester.

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)!

Thanks to Mr. Ryan Avery, Regional Disaster Officer of the American Red Cross

As an educator, I hope to inspire my students in all the classes that I teach and also to impart knowledge gained from years of doing research and teaching a plethora of courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

This spring semester, I am, again, teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. The class attracts students not only from our business school, but also from Public Health and from Engineering at UMass Amherst. The class meets, bright and early, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30AM. The scheduling of this course so early makes sense since a very important part of the course is hearing from expert practitioners, some of whom  travel close to 2 hours to give a guest lecture. 

This past Thursday,  we had the great honor and pleasure of having Mr. Ryan Avery, a Regional Disaster Officer (RDO) for the American Red Cross (ARC), speak in my Humanitarian Logistics & Healthcare class. 

Ryan's presentation was so informative and engaging that we all left energized, inspired, filled with hope, and grateful for the work that the ARC does in alleviating suffering. Ryan manages an ARC team of 12 employees and 750 volunteers and serves as a member of the Northeast Division Response Management Team as an Assistant Director of Workforce.  

He began his Red Cross journey in 2010 as a Disaster Cycle Services Volunteer in Connecticut, serving in this capacity for 6 years. In 2016, Ryan transitioned to becoming an employee with the ARC, working in different roles with the Wisconsin and Massachusetts teams, and as an RDO since 2023. His wealth of experience in responding to numerous national disaster relief operations including Hurricanes Matthew, Irma, Maria, Laura, Ian, and even to the 2021 Afghan Repatriation, Hurricane Helene, and the recent DCA plane crash left us awe-struck. It was very impressive to hear how the ARC continues to innovate; to be as efficient as possible; to focus on preparedness as well as on response, and to even work on long-term recovery programs. There are true heroes among us - many thanks to Mr. Ryan Avery and to the American Red Cross!

I presented Ryan with a framed Professor for a Day certificate signed by our Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey. I also followed up with a formal Thank You letter for his outstanding presentation and copied it to several ARC officials. I continue to get emails from students who were incredibly moved by his presentation and by his willingness to answer so many questions. During these very challenging times, goodness and kindness and professionalism of our disaster relief workers give me hope as does the appreciation of my students for the workers' courage and selflessness. 

Thanks to ALL Who Took Part in Our International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters in Greece

It has been an incredibly busy, yet energizing, several few weeks with two international conferences on different continents and different seasons (summer and winter).

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all those who took part in the 6th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters, which took place in Piraeus, Greece, July 3-6, 2023.

The below collage was constructed to capture a few of the highlights.

The venue of the conference was the Historical Library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus.

We had the pleasure of hearing from outstanding plenary speakers, both practitioners and academics.

It was inspiring to see conferees representing many different countries including: Austria, Germany, Nepal, Japan, Canada, Greece,  Italy, Turkey, the UK, and the US.

In a period in history with compounding disasters, the exchange of knowledge and best practices and working together to address the great challenges that we are faced with are needed more than ever.

Information about the conference, including the presenters and their talk titles can be found on the conference website.

I had the pleasure of presenting work done with my PhD student at the Isenberg School of Management Dana Hassani and colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics: Professor Oleg Nivievskyi and Dr. Pavlo Martyshev. The link to the slidedeck of the presentation can be accessed here.

Not everyone could join us because of visa and other extenuating circumstances. Sadly, in April, Professor Urmila Pyakurel of Nepal passed away. She was an avid participant in our previous Dynamics of Disasters conference. We paid a tribute to her in Piraeus. A PhD student of hers presented on their joint work. Urmila lost her life to cancer, which she had battled for many years. She was also a Humboldtian. You can read about some aspects of her amazing life here.

And, while I was at the IFORS conference in Santiago, Chile, July 10-14, 2023, at which I gave a keynote, we heard from Springer Nature that we are getting a contract to edit the volume: "Dynamics of Disasters: From Natural Phenomena to Human Activity." My fellow Co-Editors on this project are: Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas, Panos M. Pardalos, Stefan Pickl, and Chrys Vogiatzis. It was a pleasure to work with them on the organization of this very timely conference.

Thanking Mr. David Gutierrez of the American Red Cross for His Brilliant Guest Lecture in My Humanitarian Logistics & Healthcare Class

Having expert practitioners speak to students and share their experiences and lessons from the field supports transformative education.

Last week, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting Mr. David Gutierrez of the American Red Cross (ARC) as a guest lecturer in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School of Management. Mr. Gutierrez was an outstanding Professor for a Day! The certificate was kindly signed by the Isenberg School Dean - Dr. Anne P. Massey.

The original date of his lecture was rescheduled because he had been intensively responding to the aftermath of the tornado in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.

Mr. David Gutierrez in the Senior Director of the National Incident Command Team of the American Red Cross. The National Incident Command Team was established about 1 year ago due to the unprecedented number of disasters. According to Mr. Gutierrez: "disasters have been nonstop." The ARC has been dealing with many challenges including climate displacement.

Mr. Gutierrez shared his "story" with us and his incredible career with the ARC, which continues. Professionally, he started out as a High School teacher and began volunteering with the ARC in 1992. Over more than three decades, he has served in various roles including: Health & Safety Director, AFES Station Manager, Chapter Executive, Chapter Operations Manager, State Relations Disaster Liaison, State Resource Office Coordinator, Emergency Services Director, State Disaster Officer, Division Disaster Director and Division Disaster Executive. In his current role as the Senior Director for the National Incident Command Team, he is responsible for initiating a Red Cross disaster response for level 5 disasters and higher. This includes oversight and direction of all activities related to disaster leadership development, disaster response training, partnerships with government and non-government agencies, and capacity building for the organization. An example of a  level 1 disaster is a house fire, that the ARC would also respond to.

He spoke about the 3Hs - Health, Hunger, and Housing, and how the ARC provides security to victims of disasters for up to 1 year. Many of those impacted by disasters are experiencing poverty and disasters create further stressors on the most vulnerable. The #1 priority of the National Incident Command Team is to respond. The other priority is to build capacity and to make sure that the workforce is trained. The students were very inspired and also amazed that 98% of the ARC workforce consists of volunteers! I very much appreciated that Mr. David Gutierrez noted the relevance of the logistics behind the workforce and in getting the workers to impacted areas in a timely manner. Sometimes there can be as many as 2,000 volunteers. The ARC pays for the travel expenses as well as the room and board. He discussed the specific case of Hurricane Ian and the impact on Tampa Bay, along with the response of the ARC.

Mr. Gutierrez has deployed to over 50 relief operations throughout his tenure with the Red Cross. He also serves as a National Disaster Relief Operation Job Director for the ARC. He served as the job director for Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Ida, and Hurricane Harvey. In the role of job director, Mr. Gutierrez is responsible for leading a team of individuals who provide a range of clients with a comfortable, safe, welcoming environment by delivering mass care services, which include shelter, feeding, distribution of relief supplies, reunification, Disaster Health Services, Disaster Mental Health Services, Disaster Spiritual Care, Casework and Recovery Planning, and access to a host of services provided by partners in the community.

He emphasized the importance of needs assessment and in learning from previous disaster experiences. This reinforced what the students have learned from other guest speakers this semester, including Dr. George Karagiannis of Resilience First and Mr. Jeff Hescock of UMass Amherst! Lessons learned must be captured and shared. He also noted the necessity behind collaboration with partners; coordination with response partners, and also effective communication.

Mr. Gutierrez's dedication to the American Red Cross shone through his presentation  Along with his team,  he works to ensure timely, efficient disaster response efforts, ensuring that local community organizations and the Red Cross are coordinating and collaborating in order to efficiently and effectively meet community needs.

Mr. Gutierrez is a role model. His dedication, work ethic, kindness, and effectiveness are awe-inspiring. On behalf of my students, and all those that he and his team have helped, I send my deepest gratitude.

Thanks to All Who Made Our 2021 Dynamics of Disasters Conference a Success!

The 5th International Conference on Dynamics of Disasters has now come to a close. It was Professor Panos M. Pardalos who had the vision to start this conference series. I have had the honor of co-organizing the last four of them. This year the conference was virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was co-organized by Professors Pardalos, Ilias S. Kotsireas, Chrys Vogiatzis, and me, with support provided by Professor Fuad Aleskerov and Sofia Papadaki. The conference website has a link to the full program and information on the outstanding plenary speakers: Professor Maria Besiou and Professor Oleg Prokopyev, and Dr. Stavros Siokos and Dr. George Karagiannis. It was very appropriate and illuminating to have plenary speakers from academia, industry, and government, who shed light on the latest research as well as best practices. 

The plenary talks were truly inspirational!

This was a single stream conference, which worked very well. There were excellent questions and a lot of discussions. Speakers and participants came from many countries, including: Austria, Germany, Italy, India, Nepal, Russia, the UK and the United States! It was very special to have four of my former PhD students present: Dr. Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, Dr. Pritha Dutta of Pace University, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and the plenary speaker, Dr. Stavros Siokos! Dr. Besik presented on our latest food supply chain research with disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is joint work with Dr. Dutta. Dr. Dutta, in turn, presented on our convalescent plasma research, a paper that was very recently published in Operations Research Forum. Also, my PhD student, Mojtaba Salarpour, presented  our paper published in the International Journal of Production Economics. In addition, I presented a paper on refugee migration networks that was co-authored with Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford. Our paper had been recently published in the Journal of Global Optimization. Professor Daniele also presented a paper on UAVs and 5G for disaster relief, work with Daniele Sciacca and Gabriella Colajanni.

As Professor Stephan Onggo of the UK (he is originally from Indonesia and is heading the Ops-Relief project) said: Disaster Management is complex and requires many different tools. And, indeed, the conference talks demonstrated the utility and applicability of optimization and simulation tools, AI and Machine Learning, game theory, network science, Data Envelope Analysis, and even the analysis of Twitter. There was definitely a "network" theme in many of the presentations!

Special thanks to colleagues in Nepal, India, and Russia, who joined us despite the challenges with their time zones and the conference talk scheduling. I am so grateful to each and every speaker and participant for the knowledge that was exchanges and also for the very supportive community that we have been building across the miles.

I am very pleased that many new research ideas were generated and new connections made virtually across the miles. It was wonderful to have 3 INFORMS Fellows take part in the conference, Professors Pardalos and Vicki Bier and me!

Below is a virtual group picture of the conferees.

And, UMass Amherst posted this nice article about our conference.

Professor Panos M. Pardalos closed out the conference with the following quote, which I leave you with, "Keep positive but test negative!"

Professor Pardalos, inspired by Dr. Siokos, who emphasized that trees are the only "technology" that removes carbon from the air, then showed us the book in the photo below. Dr. Siokos is the co-founder of Astarte Capital Partners, based in London, England, which invests heavily in forests around the globe.

And we will be co-editing a special issue of the journal Operations Research Forum on our conference theme. The call for papers can be downloaded here.

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 Thanks to Dr. George Karagiannis for His Brilliant Guest Lecture in My Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

This past week, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting Dr. George Karagiannis in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class, which, this year, is being taught remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An integral part of this course is having guest lecturers who are expert practitioners. Hearing from such experts reinforces the course material and provides for a rich educational experience for the students.

Now, for some background on Dr. Karagiannis, whom I met back in 2015, when I co-organized the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Kalamata, Greece, with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, and Dr. Karagiannis was a speaker. We also hosted him for a seminar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Fall of 2015.

Dr. George 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. He has worked in four countries, developed two strategic national risk assessments, organized over 60 exercises, led the development of a dozen emergency operations plans and responded to disasters in the field. He also was a Research Scientist at the Technical University of Crete in Greece, where he his interdisciplinary research lay at the intersection of systems engineering and disaster resilience. George earned his Doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering from Saint-Etienne School of Mines in France. He also holds degrees in Civil Engineering and in Disaster Management and Business Administration, and is a Certified Emergency Manager by the International Association of Emergency Managers.

Dr. Karagiannis's presentation title in my course was, "Humanitarian Needs Assessment & Information Management." He zoomed in from Athens, Greece, which was lovely since the students in this class are physically located not only in Massachusetts but across the US, with a student even enrolled, who is now in Turkey.

Due to multiple inquiries and requests, Dr. Karagiannis has given me permission to post the slide deck of his excellent presentation.

So many excellent insights and recommendation are contained in his presentation, which I urge you to study. Some of the takeaways that very much resonated with me and also reinforced the material that we have been covering in the class and will be addressing in subsequent weeks are the following:

1. Help flows were there are cameras. This statement demonstrates the importance of media in getting the news out but also emphasizes that, at times, people who are victims of disasters may not get the help that they need.

2. Goods may be donated and delivered that do not help the victims - such as fur coats from Greece following the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006! The wrong goods create extra stressors (even if they are donated in good faith) since they require human resources to offload and also take up valuable storage space. In the case of the furs, they ultimately created a health hazard. I recall tuxedos being delivered to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and there are many other such incredible stories of the wrong goods.

3. When do you stop gathering data? How much data is "good enough" for needs assessment?

4. The recognition of the importance of time is paramount. If it takes a time t for needs assessment, it will take a time of 2t for making a decision.

5. One must distinguish primary data from secondary data.

6. Comparison over time is also essential in terms of the number of people displaced by the disaster.

7. One of the greatest challenges is learning to make decisions with only incomplete information when everything is at stake!

8. There is a shift of Emergency Management now in addressing infrastructure, which makes tremendous sense due to the negative impacts of climate change on infrastructure.

I very much like that he noted the UN Cluster Approach to support sector emergency functions, which we had emphasized in the course just a few days prior.

We also had a great discussion on how well Greece mitigated the spread of the coronavirus, starting their preparations already in early January! The country was very agile and reacted quickly.

The students were prepared with questions for the speaker. Dr. Karagiannis was so generous with his time - staying way past the class time window to answer questions.

And we honored him with a Professor for a Day certificate recognizing that his contributions.

Very Excited About Speaking at Multiple Operations Research Conferences in Europe - from North to South!

Since returning from the fabulous NetSci conference in Burlington, Vermont, which I blogged about, I have been finalizing the talks that I will be giving at conferences over the next few weeks in Europe.

Next Sunday, the EURO Dublin 2019 conference begins, at University College Dublin. This conference will convene academics, practitioners, and students from around the globe and I can hardly contain my excitement. I am so looking forward to seeing many colleagues as well as former doctoral students, including Dr. Dmytro Matsypura, who will be traveling from the University of Sydney in Australia!

In addition to fabulous tutorials, plenary talks, and sessions, I am looking forward to a journal editorial board meeting next Monday for the journal International Transactions in Operational Research, expertly edited by Professor Celso Ribeiro  and a panel that day on Women in OR.

I was planning on attending a special banquet next Monday evening, but with my tutorial on Tuesday, bright and early at 8:30AM, I had to decline the invitation. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to deliver this tutorial and am very grateful to the EURO Dublin conference organizers!

Next Tuesday evening, there will be the conference banquet, and, on Wednesday morning (there is certainly a "bright and early" theme here), I agreed to be on another panel (just this morning) on Making and Impact with OR, as part of the stream on this theme. The invitation came from Dr. Joaquim Gromicho, and this panel will be chaired by Dr. Cathal MacSwiney Brugha. And, on Tuesday, afternoon, I will be speaking on some of our research on tariffs in a session that I organized.

Then, after giving a talk at IBM in Dublin on Thursday, which I am very much looking forward to, we will journey through several countries for the Dynamics of Disasters conference in Greece, that I co-organized with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos. At the Dynamics of Disasters conference, I will present some of our latest research on humanitarian logistics and disaster relief.The research was done with one of my doctoral students, Mojtaba Salarpour, and Professor Patrizia Daniele, who was on the organizing committee of the EURO Dublin conference!

The last conference that I will be speaking at in Europe over this three week period is the World Congress on Global Optimization (WCGO), where I have the honor of delivering a plenary talk (there is also some additional good news that will be officially announced at this conference).

 

And, coincidentally, when I will be at WCGO in France, my co-author, Dr. Ken Calvert, will be speaking on our Internet research with Professors Tilman Wolf and Jim Griffioen in Dallas at the ICDCS2019 conference.

So, for the non-academics out there, these are just some of the types of activities that faculty keep themselves very busy with during the summer months.

Now, I am working on optimizing the packing of a carry-on suitcase for all the professional  travel in both the north and south of Europe.

Fabulous Guest Lecture by a MEMA Expert on the Boston Marathon - Public Safety and Security Experience

Having expert practitioners speak to students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class provides outstanding educational experiences that stay with students even after they graduate. The logistics of scheduling experts can, in itself, be challenging, but the risks reap great rewards.

This past Tuesday, we had the honor of hosting Ms. Sara Zalieckas, who is an All Hazards Planner with MEMA (Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency) and is based in Framingham, Massachusetts (about a two hour drive to UMass Amherst). She arrived in time for the early morning class, which meets from 8:30AM-9:45AM and, although I was waiting for her in the original atrium to escort her to the classroom, and she was in the new $62million addition to the Isenberg School,  we connected in time!

Ms Zalieckas is a Canadian, which made me extra excited since I was also born in Canada, and, in fact, had been to Halifax last summer to present at the CORS (Canadian Operations Research Society) conference, where she is from! She has worked for MEMA since 2012 and, hence, was employed by MEMA, when the bombing at the Boston Marathon took place on April 15, 2013.

The title of her guest lecture was: The Boston Marathon - Public Safety and Security Experience.

This year's Boston Marathon is taking place on April 15, 2019.

Ms. Zalieckas informed us of the extensive planning involved among multiple organizations to ensure the safety and security of runners, volunteers, supporters, and spectators alike in this major sports event, which covers over 26 miles (I have run several Ocean State marathons in RI, so I understand the energy and athleticism involved). It is considered the most challenging sports event to secure in the country. The Super Bowl is in one location, in contrast, for example. In 2013, there were 27,000 registered runners and the weather was ideal. In 2019, 60,000 runners are expected.

Rather than detailing the horrific attacks at the 2013 Boston Marathon, I will refer you to a blogpost I wrote following the guest lecture of Dr. Pierre Rouzier, who is a sports medicine physician, based at UMass Amherst, and who was working in a triage tent at that Marathon.

Post 2013, the focus  has been on lessons learned, and on assessing vulnerabilities and threats. Ms. Zalieckas brought to our attention, the 2013 Boston Marathon after action report, which can be accessed here.

Previously, jurisdictions had been working in silos, which was understandable since the marathon course covers a distance of over 26 miles.  Now there is a Unified Coordination Plan, with plans for evacuations, should the need arise, along the course in multiple locations, with even alternative routes to shelters along the Boston Marathon route identified, along with transportation options, such as buses staged. This I found truly fascinating. Now there is a joint information center and system, so that rumors, which are unsubstantiated, do not propagate, along with misinformation. There are also station "blocking" vehicles along the course.

The level of detail and the organizations involved to ensure public safety and security is extraordinary. More intense planning has been taking place since January 2019 to test out communications, to run tabletop exercises and training, to conduct intelligence and investigations (with appropriate federal partners), and to also address how to respond to mass casualty events. I also found it very impressive that MEMA, along with partners, has structured coordination of decision making and there is now a Unified Coordination Center. You may know that the MEMA headquarters in Framingham is actually an underground bunker built during the Cold War and our President at that time, John F. Kennedy, was to inaugurate its opening, but he was assassinated.

It is also so impressive that there is!a drone response plan is in place for the Boston Marathon and, of course, GIS is also utilized to monitor congestion along the route.

Ms. Sara Zaieckas' guest lecture was mesmerizing. I also was very pleased that we had a female speaker this term (and will be having another one next month).

We took a group photo after her guest lecture.

In appreciation, we presented Ms. Zalieckas with a gift from the Isenberg School of Management, and I followed up with several photos and a formal thank you letter, which I also copied to the new Director of MEMA, Ms. Samantha Phillips, which was recently appointed to this important most by Governor Charlie Baker. Quite exciting to have a female at the helm of MEMA!

I wish all the runners, the volunteers, supporters, and spectators, as well as the emergency management folks and their liaisons, a wonderful and safe 2019 Boston Marathon! We will be watching and cheering from near and far!

A Public Thank You to the UMass Amherst Police Department for a Great Field Trip for My Humanitarian Logistics Class

Today is Valentine's Day and I brought muffins from Whole Foods (so they must be healthy) for the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class at the Isenberg School. I thought it a nice way to celebrate the holiday and also to show appreciation to my students for their great questions this past Tuesday on our class field trip to the UMass Amherst Police Department at the corner of East Pleasant Street and Eastman Lane in Amherst.

I am a big believer in hosting practitioners in such a class as well as organizing field trips and, since the class meets early, from 8:30-10:00AM, that helps with the logistics of such special experiences.

Our host was Lt. Tom O'Donnell, who himself is a UMass Amherst grad in criminal science, and the experience was so educational and fascinating that today I delivered a gift to him, along with a thank you card signed by the students.

I was so proud of my students since the Lt. had sent me a message, after our field trip, which included the following:

Thanks for the note, it is very kind of you. Please let the students know they asked some of the best questions I have ever had. I can usually guess the questions that will be asked when giving a tour, and your class asked some of the most in-depth questions that I can remember.

The field trip began with a session in a classroom at the police station, which included a lot of Q&A. We got to hear the challenges of policing at UMass Amherst over thirty years and how the challenges have changed over time. It was very impressive to learn about how the police department prepares over months for special scheduled events and also how it anticipates incidents. There are 61 police officers, who are supplemented with cadets that live in the dorms and provide useful input. The UMass Amherst Police Department also is heavily involved in the community and has organized fishing trips, an Amazing Race, and even bike rodeos. It has also hosted middle schoolers for movies.

The UMass Amherst police officers all are professionally trained. Because of their expertise they are sometimes even called upon by the neighboring town of Hadley, which has a tiny police force. The humanity of Lt. Tom O'Donnell was so apparent and his concern about students and their welfare. He even noted how students, these days, are under so much pressure to succeed and this can impact their mental health.

The Police Station, which is only a few years old, is stunning and another highlight was touring the facility, from the high tech room, where we got to meet and speak with the dispatchers (and marveled at the big screen with the weather, since we were facing a big snowstorm) to even the cells, where there are places for those under protective custody. Everything has been thought through, from the best way to deliver those brought in, to audio and video equipment to record answers of those brought in, to questions that they are asked to ascertain their condition, such as: Who is the President of the US? Even the flusher for each toilet in a cell is located outside the cell. We were asked whether we knew the reason behind this. We saw the blankets, carefully wrapped, and used for those who stay overnight and learned how those brought in are fed before being released or transferred to the Northampton facility.

What also amazed me is how spotless everything was - very scrubbed and well-maintained. We learned about "Run, Hide, Fight" in case of certain incidents and that the police department will soon be introducing a six minute video, which I am sure will be a must-see.

The impact that Lt. Tom O'Donnell has had and continues to have also reaches outside of our community to, would you believe, Ecuador! In January, at about the same time that I was taking part in and speaking at the fabulous Congreso Futuro in Chile, Lt. O'Donnell, with a coterie of colleagues, was training police in Ecuador.

He shared with us some of the policing techniques that they educated the police force there on (and, frankly, I will be checking out episodes of Law and Order to see if the right tactics are being followed), which will be shared with 40,000 police members nationally in Ecuador. 

After the indoor time, we took a group photo.

For those who did not have to rush off to their next class at 10AM on campus, we got to tour the garage, where the police bikes are stored, and the special vehicles in the lot, including a Humvee and the Command Center. We did not get a chance to see the police horses, who are housed elsewhere!

And, to top off the fantastic field trip, we even received 5 souvenirs each from Lt. O'Donnell and the UMass  Amherst Police Department, including a portable stapler, which will come in good use, and a lovely notebook with colorful stickers, and even tissues, given that this is winter!

A huge thank to to Lt. Tom O'Donnell for a wonderful educational experience for my class! We so much appreciate what you and the UMass Amherst Police Department do for our great university and beyond.