International Collaborations Panel

I am very much looking forward to the ALIO-INFORMS Conference that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, June 6-9, 2010. Besides giving a talk on Sustainable Supply Chain Network Design at the conference and an invited tutorial: Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age, which is on the theme of my latest book with Professor Patrick Qiang, I will be on a panel: International Collaborations. The panel was organized by Professor Sadan Kulturel of Pennsylvania State University Berks and is sponsored by WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences). Dr. Kulturel has assembled a great group of panelists that I am honored to be included with: Dr. Karla Hoffman of George Mason University, Dr. M. Gulnara Baldoquin of the Higher Polytechnic Institute in Cuba, and Dr. Lorena Pradenas of Concepcion University in Chile. More information on the panelists can be accessed here with a press release from Penn State Berks on this panel available here.

Each panelist will give a 10 minute presentation followed by questions and answers.

My presentation on my personal experiences and reflections on international collaborations is available here (complete with a lot of photos)

I am very much looking forward to this conference and to participating in the panel and discussions and I thank Dr. Sadan Kulturel for organizing this special panel.

Send Us Your Professors

Send In the Professors is the title of an OpEd piece in The New York Times, written by Professor Altaii, who is an Engineering Professor at James Madison University. Professor Altaii in his very moving article on the devastation of higher education in Iraq quotes his mother: “Education is the most important thing in the world,” she said. “Once you realize that, there is nothing you cannot accomplish.” An Iraqi professor is quoted in the article as saying: “Occupy us with your knowledge and advances, not with your guns."

In his article, Professor Altaii notes that the US has several educational initiatives in Iraq, including the new Fulbright Visiting Scholarship Program for Iraq that will enable more than two dozen Iraqi professors to spend time at US universities. As a former Fulbrighter (two times) I can attest to the unique nature of this program in helping to build international friendships, collaborations, enriching educational experiences, and long-lasting special memories.

I would also like to highlight several other very special educational initiatives and programs that are making great impacts on parts of our globe where professors are being sent from the US to Afghanistan; to Kenya, and to India. Many of these intitiatives are due to the professors themselves and the partnerships that they have established.

For example, my university, UMass Amherst, has been involved in sending teachers to Afghanistan as this nice writeup in The Boston Globe reports. Because of this initiative, last month, 41 students earned advanced degrees in education, nearly doubling the number of master’s-level faculty at education colleges in Afghanistan. A colleague of my husband's at the University of Hartford, Professor Keshawarz, who was born in Afghanistan, and who has been involved in rebuilding the engineering education infrastructure there states that: "To have an impact, the international community must establish priorities with an eye toward the long term. Providing food is not enough. Aid programs must help rebuild agricultural capacity so that Afghans can feed themselves. Also, in addition to building roads, bridges, and hospitals, we must establish the educational infrastructure needed to train engineers and doctors." More about his brave and important educational activities can be found here.

Another group, representing the University of Hartford, Brown University (from which I have 4 degrees), and the University of Rhode Island, last summer traveled to Kenya. The delegation included the Provost of the University of Hartford, Dr. Lynn Pasquerella (who is the incoming, new President of Mount Holyoke College, and a Brown PhD), who spearheaded this initiative. This group, which also included students, is utilizing a variety of disciplines – engineering, art, and sociology – to help residents address such issues as water purification, sustainable agriculture, and women’s safety.

In addition, Professor David Pines, also a colleague of my husband's, who is involved in the above Kenya project, has been leading groups of students to India, through the Engineering Without Borders program, to assist in the building of water wells and the provision of clean water.

Through international, face to face, education, great, positive impacts can be achieved. Indeed, even in war-torn and strife-stricken regions, professors can serve as emissaries for knowledge and peace. Respect for education knows no boundaries.

Boston, Cambridge, and Upcoming Conference in Buenos Aires

I was in Boston and Cambridge this past week where the roads and streets were clear of snow, unlike the Washington DC area, which is being pummeled by a huge snowstorm that has grounded travel to a halt.

Having spent a year as a Science Fellow at Harvard in 2005-2006 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, I like to go back fairly regularly. Cambridge and Boston are two magnificent locations in my state of Massachusetts and I get my muse in those places (among others).

While in Cambridge, I met the Executive Director of the Latin America Research Center of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University, who is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Buenos Aires is the venue for the ALIO-INFORMS Conference that is taking place in early June, 2010. At the conference, I will be giving a tutorial, Fragile Networks: Identifying Vulnerabilities and Synergies in an Uncertain Age. Additional tutorial topics and plenary lectures can be found here. The New York Times had a recent article on Buenos Aires which highly recommended it as a fascinating destination.

At the ALIO-INFORMS conference, which will bring operations researchers and management scientists from around the globe to discuss their latest research, I will also be taking part in a panel on International Collaborations, a topic that I have been writing about on this blog recently. The panel is organized by WORMS, Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences, a fora of my professional society INFORMS. The convener of this panel is Dr. Sadan Kulturel, a Professor at Penn State Berks. Joining me on the panel will be: Drs. M. Gulnara Baldoquin, Karla Hoffman, and Lorena Predanas. The panel will focus on different means of international collaborations such as funded projects, international research and teaching projects, sabbaticals, etc. The panelists will discuss their unique perspectives on issues affecting the success of women in academic positions in the US and in Latin American countries. I am very much looking forward to being on this panel, giving my tutorial, and to going to the ALIO-INFORMS conference.

Above I share with you some photos of the intellectual capitals of the universe (Boston and Cambridge) taken this past week (including photos of Harvard Yard and Radcliffe Yard, with a recent sculpture, and where I had my office as a Science Fellow). I could not resist also including a photo of the bronze sculptures of the ducks made famous in the book, Make Way for Ducklings, on the Boston Common. Note the absence of snow although it is February!

International Collaborations and Innovation as a Contact Sport

Dr. Indira V. Samarasekera, the President of the University of Alberta in Canada, wrote an article, "Universities Need a New Social Contract," that was published in Nature, as an opinion piece in the November 12, 2009 issue. The eloquent piece had numerous excellent ideas including that leaders from major government funding agencies from across the world -- particularly from North America, Europe, India, and China should be brought together to help to define a funding model designed to award interdisciplinary, inter-institutional and international projects. She argued that many of the most pressing problems that we are faced with today are global from international security to energy, environmental sustainability, and economic recovery. The present funding models are stuck in inertia and to solve the critical problems, international collaborations are needed.

I have had the benefit of one National Science Foundation grant through the International Programs Office to work on a project with Sweden, have benefited from two international collaborations through the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Program, and have been on two thoroughly rewarding Fulbright adventures. I have also held other visiting positions outside of the US.

My university, UMASS Amherst, has now created a website for international research activities. I am very pleased that the center that I direct, the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, is one of the affiliated centers. This new website has a link to Fulbright scholars that have come to UMass Amherst as well as Fulbrights awarded to faculty and students. Finally, it also includes a list of recent funded research projects with an international component and I am very pleased to see that the Humanitarian Logistics: Networks for Africa conference that I organized is also on the list.

Dr. Samarasekera said in her Nature article that innovation is a contact sport and funding agencies need to work across disciplinary and national boundaries to bring researchers together who can make the greatest discoveries through intense collaborations. I fully concur!