Outstanding Future BA (Business Analytics) Prof Workshop at the University of Iowa

I recently returned from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. I was there to give an invited talk on research at the 3rd Future BA (Business Analytics) Workshop. Many thanks to Professor Ann Melissa Campbell for inviting me and congratulations to her and to her workshop co-organizers Professors Kang Zhao and Beste Basciftci on the success of the workshop!

There had been 80 applicants with 28 selected and participating with advanced PhD students and postdocs from many universities taking part including: UC Berkeley, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Clemson, University of Oklahoma, University of Buffalo, Harvard, MIT, and UMass Amherst.  It was my first time in Iowa and it was great to see the faculty and to also hear from the other invited speakers: Professor Tallys Yunes, who spoke on teaching, and Professor Bin Gu, who also spoke on research. 

Below is a photo that was taken of the group. It was quite remarkable that I had met several of the PhD students previously. 

I was also thrilled that my PhD student, Dana Hassani, took part. It was great to hear him give the elevator speech on his research and to hear from the others.

What impressed me was the enthusiasm and passion of the participants for their research, which I found uplifting and inspiring. 

The workshop kept us all very busy with the presentations, nice lunches and coffee breaks, networking sessions, and a dinner at a winery.

We could not resist taking a few more photos and the smiles on everyone's faces show how rewarding this workshop was.

I have posted the slide deck of my presentation here.

I wish all those who took part best of luck on their research and completing their dissertations, if they have not done so, plus successful academic job interviews!

I was very touched by the number of nice email messages I received from the PhD students and participants - they were very heartwarming and I appreciate the politeness and the reaching out.

This group has established a very nice and supportive network and I warmly thank Professors Campbell, Zhao, and Basciftci. It was also terrific to hear from Professor Barrett Thomas and to see Professor Thiago Serra, who has just joined the Tippie Business Analytics faculty after spending 5 years at Bucknell University.

Some background on this workshop on its website here.

Save the Dates - Two Upcoming Techie Talks at the Isenberg School Thanks to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter

Spring break is over and we have only about 6 weeks of the spring semester left.

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and I, as the Chapter's Faculty Advisor, are quite excited about our upcoming speakers.

This Friday, March 28, we will be hosting Dr. Eric Gonzales of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UMass Amherst. He will be speaking on Coordinating Traffic and Transit Systems: Linking Transportation Science and Economics. Dr. Gonzales received his PhD from UC Berkeley and his dissertation advisor was Professor Carlos Daganzo, who is the most recent recipient of the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science announced at the INFORMS Minneapolis meeting last Fall. Dr. Daganzo was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014.  Professor Gonzales was previously at Rutgers University and we are very happy that he is now, as of this semester, at UMass Amherst.

Also, on Friday, April 18, we will be hosting my colleague, Professor Ryan Wright of the Operations & Information Management Department. Professor Wright will be speaking on Towards a Behavioral Model of Online Deception Detection. This topic is also fascinating. Dr. Wright is a fellow Canadian and he and I spoke at the UMass Amherst TEDx event last November and were nominated by students, which was such a nice and pleasant surprise. He instructs the required information management course at the Isenberg School to an audience of hundreds.

I hope that you can join us for these talks. We have also invited another speaker so stay tuned!

For more information about the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, please visit its website.

Great New Concentrations in Our Operations & Information Management Major Including Supply Chain Management at the Isenberg School

We heard the news at our departmental meeting this past Friday at the Isenberg School of Management. Our proposal to have 3 concentrations in our Operations & Information Management major has been approved!

Students who are majoring in Operations & Information Management (the name of my new department) can now select from 3 concentrations: Integrated Operations & Information Management, Supply Chain Management, and Information Systems. These concentrations are even relevant to our May 2014 graduates, provided that they fulfill the requirements.

The official document can be found online.

Having these distinct concentrations provides better academic preparation for career paths and job opportunities.

I teach two of the courses in the new Supply Chain Management track - my Logistics and Transportation class in the Fall and my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class in the Spring, which I am now teaching and have also been writing about in this blog because we have been hosting amazing guest speakers. The students have been writing about the lessons learned and their reflections.

Below is the full list of courses in our Supply Chain Management concentration:

 It's very exciting to see advances in our curricula that benefit both students and faculty, who love what they teach since they also do research in these areas!

An Auto Executive and Former Student Comes Back

I think that everyone remembers one's first day on the job.

As a professor, I still remember teaching my first classes at UMass Amherst in the School of Management. I was hired, fresh with my PhD in Applied Math with a specialty in Operations Research from Brown University, and with several years of high tech work experience in the defense sector in Newport, Rhode Island, to teach MBA courses in Management Information Systems and Management Science.

One of the classes that I was responsible for teaching was a night class in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Several of the students in that class were over twice my age and doubted my credentials, so I even brought my Brown PhD diploma to show them.

In that class was a student who stood out with his energy, enthusiasm, and ambition. Plus, he was close to my age so there was a natural comfort level between us. He was trying to get into the MBA program while working as a bagger for a local food store and the then MBA Director told him that he would need to evaluate his performance in 3 courses before considering him for full-time admission. One of the courses was the course that I was teaching.

Well, he made it, received his MBA, got a terrific position with a Big Three auto company (which is profitable even today) and has moved stellarly through the ranks with assignments in NYC, Philly, Cincinnati, Detroit, the DC area, and, my favorite -- in Dallas, Texas (which was considered an international assignment because Texas is just so different from the rest of the US).

Now my former student has reached the position of Director with responsibilities for North America and he came back yesterday. We spent two hours at lunch reminiscing and catching up and his stories of transportation and business were captivating (and the time much too short).

We ended on such a high note -- he had me doubled over laughing as he regaled me with stories of all the UMass Amherst alums he comes across in his business and how they remember fondly their experiences on this campus, with its student and faculty diversity and numerous activities and events, which prepared them really well for survival and excelling in the real world.

We walked back together from lunch since I had to take part in a teleconference and he was going to meet his child, who, yes, is now a student at UMass Amherst.