Presentations of Our POMS Talks in Atlanta Have Been Posted: From Agricultural Trade to War Risk Insurance

Last week,  I was busy with events and the last week of the academic year, but my Isenberg School PhD students traveled to Atlanta to present our joint work at the POM (Production and Operations Management) Society 35th Conference. They had an outstanding time and also, thanks to Isenberg PhD alumna, Dr. Deniz Besik of the University of Richmond, enjoyed a delicious lunch at a Turkish restaurant. My former PhD student, now at the University of Portland, as a tenured Associate Professor, Dr. Min Yu, also joined them. Below is a collage of photos of my PhD students: Dana Hassani, Ismael Pour, and Samira Samadi, presenting plus a lunch photo.

Dr. Deniz Besik also presented on our work on food banks. Below is a graphic of the first slide of our four presentations.

The slide decks of the full presentations, which, in the case of my PhD students, were all based on recently published papers, can be found on the Supernetwork Center website:  https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals.html Dana's presentation was based on a paper published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science. Ismael's paper appeared recently in International Transactions in Operational Research, and both his and Dana's paper was co-authored with colleagues in Ukraine. Samira's paper, which was co-authored also with Ismael, appeared in the Journal of Nonlinear and Variational Analysis.

I am very lucky to have excellent PhD students (present and former).

My 3 PhD Students Will Present Our Recently Published Papers at the POMS Conference in Atlanta

I am a very lucky and proud Academic Mom. My 3 Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst PhD students will present our recently published papers at the POMS Conference in Atlanta, which overlaps with Mother's Day https://pomsmeetings.org/conf-2025/

Dana Hassani will present the paper, "A Multiperiod, Multicommodity, Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime," which was co-authored with colleagues at the Kyiv School of Economics: Oleg Nivievskyi and Pavel Martyshev, and published in the INFORMS journal Transportation Science: https://lnkd.in/eUC3PA3J.  Ismael will present the paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," which was co-authored with Borys Kormych of the National University "Odessa Law Academy" and published just this morning in the IFORS journal International Transactions in Operational Research: https://lnkd.in/e-3MxaDY. Samira will present the paper, "A Variational Inequality Trade Network Model in Prices and Quantities Under Commodity Losses," that we co-authored with Ismael, and that was published open access in the Journal of Nonlinear and Variational Analysis: https://lnkd.in/eSuiqC_C. Support for co-authors in Ukraine was made possible through the outstanding partnership between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics, thanks to the leadership of Vice Chancellor of Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi and Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst Dean Anne P. Massey. 

Our presentations are ready!

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Conferencing! 

Honored to Have Our Supply Chain Network Equilibrium Paper Recognized in the 25 Year Retrospective of the Journal Transportation Research E: Logistics and Transportation Review

 Academics work very hard on their research and enjoy seeing their work published. One also hopes that one's work is appreciated and recognized and, in academia, getting cited and also doing impactful research is deeply rewarding.

I'd like to first congratulate all the Editors of the journal Transportation Research E: Logistics and Transportation Review on the significant milestone - its 25th anniversary. I did serve on the Editorial Board of this journal for several years but am no longer doing so.

I was delighted to see a 25 year retrospective on the publications in this journal published recently by the two Co-Editors, T-M. Choi and Qiang Meng, with Shukai Chen. 

In the retrospective, the authors recognized the most highly cited articles on various themes that have dominated the journal over the past 25 years.

The paper, "A Supply Chain Network Equilibrium Model," which I co-authored with June Dong and Ding Zhang, was the top cited paper in "network modeling." Dong and Zhang are Professors at SUNY Oswego, and both were my PhD students at UMass Amherst.

In fact, this paper, is among my top cited works according also to Google Scholar:

I also very much appreciate what the authors of the retrospective wrote in the following: "Another noticeable feature is that, although the universities in the United States may not publish a very high number of papers, their research work can be very impactful and attract lots of citations, e.g., the University of Maryland and the University of Massachusetts Amherst."  Thanks for this. We work as a team at the Virtual Center for Supernetworks that I founded in 2001.

Plus, from the following tables, it is great to see the research that we have done at UMass Amherst on supply chains and on networks, two of the "hot topics" in the journal over the years, noted.

Congratulations are in order to all those whose research has been recognized in this 25 year retrospective! I'd also like to thank the authors of the retrospective for their thorough analysis and very interesting highlights of the contributions in the journal over the past quarter century. I look forward to many more interesting and important findings in the next 25 years in logistics and transportation, themes that have never been more important than they are now!

Of course, many thanks to all those who have cited our work!

My INFORMS Tutorial on Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic

This past week the INFORMS Annual Meeting took place in Anaheim, California with both in-person and virtual presentations. I was honored to have been invited by Professor John Carlsson from USC to present a tutorial at this conference. My tutorial was on: Game Theory and the COVID-19 Pandemic. The tutorials were all prerecorded and streamed.

The tutorial has coverage of fundamental methodologies plus applications of game theory and optimization to supply chain network models inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic from food to PPE ones. It includes models in which the governing concept is that of Nash Equilibrium, Generalized Nash Equilibrium as well as cooperation. The application part of the tutorial is based on papers, synthesized, that have been published in the pandemic. I am very grateful to my co-authors for wonderful collaborations before the pandemic and throughout the pandemic.

The video of the tutorial can be viewed here: https://bit.ly/3pCzFeT.

Due to requests, I have also made the slide deck of my tutorial available and it can be downloaded here: https://bit.ly/3mfR8HK

Finally, the preprint of of the tutorial is available on the following link https://bit.ly/3bdEvXD. The tutorial paper, which is 48 pages, has been published in the INFORMS Tutorial volume:  Emerging Optimization Methods and Modeling Techniques with Applications https://bit.ly/3Gg4GeB. 

Special acknowledgments to Professors John Carlsson and Doug Shier of Clemson University for the expert editing of the volume and the organizing of these timely tutorials. 

Beginning My 13th Year of Blogging

Hard to believe that not only is the horrific 2020 year behind us, but that this month marks the beginning of my 13th year of blogging! Interestingly, I went back to my very first blogpost, which was on the new US administration in 2009 and the election of President Barack Obama. In the post, I also noted a Letter to the Editor that I had had published in The New York Times, which spoke about how much I enjoyed teaching my Transportation and Logistics class. And I taught this class, albeit remotely, this past Fall because of the pandemic. Now, once again, we have a new incoming administration, to be led by President-elect Joe Biden, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, on the horizon!

2020 has been a remarkable year in human history and there is now hope because of the Covid-19 vaccines. It was a year in which so many in our profession pivoted to inform the public through their writings, virtual speaking engagements, and many interviews with the media. I learnt so much from speaking to many journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Globe, as well as numerous other publications, including industry-based ones. It was a pleasure to be on NBC News in Boston and in Dallas and to also be on many radio programs, including NPR and Marketplace (and, remarkably, quite a few of the holiday cards that we received noted that I had been heard by friends and relatives from near and far)! I so much enjoyed the intellectual exchanges with journalists that I wrote a tribute to them in a recent blogpost. One journalist thanked me for my blog and reached out to me because of my writings. In addition, during this pandemic I managed to write three articles in The Conversation on the impacts of the pandemic on blood supply chains; game theory and competition for medical supplies (and now relevant to vaccines), plus the vaccine cold chain. These articles generated a great deal of interest and I was honored to be written up by the Isenberg School of Management and the University of Massachusetts Amherst in its 2020 Report on Research with the photo below on the back cover of this report.

With all the disruptions and pain and suffering caused by the pandemic, I am thankful that we managed to continue our research at the Supernetwork Center, with several articles of relevance to supply chains in the pandemic written. Also, our newest Dynamics of Disasters volume, will be published soon by Springer.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank professional societies, including INFORMS, for the support during the pandemic and for nurturing professional exchanges and community. I look forward to the time; hopefully, before too long, when we can again meet face to face at conferences and other venues. In the meantime, best wishes for this New 2021 Year!

Thanking Outstanding Journalists in the Pandemic

In the pandemic, a positive feature has been the number of excellent journalists that I have had the pleasure to interact with through interviews. The writings of journalists and their investigative journalism have kept us informed as new information becomes available at, sometimes, an incredibly rapid pace. Journalists are challenged now for so many reasons, including their personal safety and I thank them for their work ethic, their outreach, and their attention to digging deep. 

Honestly, one of the highlights in this pandemic is the numerous conversations that I have had with journalists, some lasting for an hour or more. I have also very much enjoyed being interviewed for several radio programs, both in the US and in England, and have enjoyed being on TV news programs in Boston and in Dallas. The intelligence of the journalists and their thoughtful questions keep this academic intellectually engaged on many dimensions. Sometimes the interviews even end with laughter and it is clear that a real connection has been made. Also, as an educator, I believe that we can play an important role, especially if our expertise is relevant, to helping journalists and the media, in general, get the important news out in the pandemic, whether it involves, for example, product shortages due to supply chain disruptions, challenges associated with the cold chains needed for the Covid-19 vaccines, and many logistical issues surrounding the distribution of the vaccines, as well as technological innovations in the vaccine cold chain.  Recently, the professional society of INFORMS, which has over 11,000 members had its virtual conference, and I was interviewed by Glenn Wegryn on my experiences with the media in the pandemic. You can view it on youtube.

In my previous blogpost, I wrote about the vaccine cold chain and noted several informative articles, including the fascinating one by Lori Hinnant in the Associated Press on challenges of the vaccine cold chain in developing countries and even the CareTalk podcast that I was honored to be a guest on.

When responding to inquiries from journalists and the media, one has to be ready, since often (but not always), they are on a tight timeline (and this is especially evident in the pandemic). I have received quite a few messages from journalists in my email marked URGENT in the subject line.

A while back I was interviewed by Charlie Slack, for the excellent article, "The pandemic offers valuable lessons that can help you compete in the months and years ahead," for the Bank of America, which is part of a series. I also thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Jeff Reinke for his article published on manufacturing.net (which has been reprinted on other outlets), "Vaccine poses immense, unprecedented distribution challenges." Jeff's knowledge of logistics is vast - honestly, I could have spoken with him for hours!

I also very much enjoyed speaking with Michael Goldstein for his superb article in Forbes, "Covid-19 vaccines are here: Are airlines ready to transport them" which presciently anticipated the big news today about Pfizer's vaccine being air shipped from Belgium to the US yesterday via United cargo!

And, I hope that all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving had a pleasant, festive day! Just before the holiday I was contacted again by a Senior Technical Writer for USA Today, Jessica Guynn, who had interviewed me a few months ago, and her latest article on product shortages, including that of, yes, here we go again, toilet paper (if you read it to the end it may make you smile). I was laughing out loud, having been reminded of summers spent at scouting camps; sleeping in a tent, and having access to very limited shower (cold water only) and bathroom facilities (outhouses).

It was a pleasure to speak with Karen Pallarito, whose article, "This is why the COVID-19 vaccine is going to take longer than you think," published on Livestrong.com.

I would also like to thank Kim Severson, a journalist for The New York Times, who had interviewed me for an article on food, "7 ways the pandemic has changed the way that we shop for food," that was published in early September. The article was very well researched and insightful. It was special to speak with Katie Surma of The Chicago Tribune for her article, "Chicago-area grocers stock up as COVID-19 cases rise.

And, as for technological innovations, Jared S. Hopkins of The Wall Street Journal, who has been writing very timely articles on the vaccine rollout, interviewed me for an article on new vials developed by Corning, that can enhance the storage and transport of the Covid-19 vaccines.

I had mentioned earlier in this blogpost that one had to be ready to respond to media inquiries. For example, I was contacted by BBC radio recently in the early afternoon for a live segment for the Colin Murray show, which took place at 5:30ET (but 10:30PM UK time).  Since I had been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College at the University of Oxford in England, I am quite good at parsing different British accents and our conversation, I believe, was terrific.

I would also like to single out and thank Larry Collins, another award-winning journalist with whom I have had the pleasure and honor of speaking in the pandemic for the news segment, "COVID-19 vaccine distribution, shipping present challenges." The TV news segment from Dallas can be accessed here. Larry is a fabulous interviewer!

It is important to add that not every interview that one might do results in quotes. Nevertheless, I have gotten thanks from two journalists for educating them and several have told me that they wish that they had majored in operations and logistics and college, so I consider this a success.

And for those of you who are interested in reading and learning more,  INFORMS maintains regular updates on its members on its website, who have appeared in the media, and who have been interviewed on various pandemic topics, including healthcare and supply chains. This is an excellent, very valuable service.

The Covid-19 Vaccine Cold Chain

On September 18, 2020 my article, "Keeping coronavirus vaccines at subzero temperatures during distribution will be hard, but likely key to ending pandemic," was published in The Conversation. I believed that it was imperative (and my Editors at The Conversation agreed) to start speaking to a broad audience on the necessity and importance of the cold chain to the effective distribution of the Covid-19 vaccines that are presently under development by major pharmaceutical firms.  There was much discussion and coverage in the press about the manufacturing aspects of the different vaccines as well as the R&D involved. However, there was very little being discussed about the distribution issues.  It was imperative to me  that emphasis (and associated challenges) on getting the approved vaccines ultimately from point A (manufacturing) to point B (point of administering of the vaccine), with the quality preserved in the transportation and distribution process, be brought to everyone's attention.

I have conducted research on perishable product supply chains from food to pharmaceuticals and even co-authored a book on the topic.

There are now 4 major Covid-19 vaccines that are far along in the trial phases and this is quite promising, with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines requiring storage below freezing (Pfizer's to the extreme temp of -94 F) with those of Astrazeneca's and John & Johnson's needing to be in the range of 2-8 degrees C, which is standard for many vaccines. 

I have published multiple articles in The Conversation, but this one generated the greatest number of comments and even emails to me from around the globe, which continue. Clearly, the article that I wrote had touched on a very important issue, and I am also grateful that the article got reprinted in multiple media outlets.

Since the publication of my article, much has happened, and the momentum keeps on growing.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by David Williams and John Driscoll for their Care Talk podcast, the link to which is below. 

 

Lori Hinnant, who is an Associated Press journalist, based in Paris, subsequently interviewed me for a fabulous article, "Vaccine storage issues could leave 3B without access."  My colleague at the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins, Tinglong Dai, was also interviewed for this article, which has been reprinted internationally in numerous outlets and also published in The Washington Post and ABCNews.

I have had additional interviews with journalists at The Wall Street Journal and am quoted in the article, "Covid-19 vaccines to be stored secretly under tight security," by Jared S. Hopkins on the security of the distribution of the vaccine. There is a slightly modified title in the hard copy version - a colleague kindly delivered his copy to my door!

I've done research with collaborators on freight security of highly value cargo and clearly the Covid-19 vaccines fall into this category!

And, on November 6, I will be featured on the NPR show The Pulse, based on an interview on the vaccine cold chain conducted by Alan Yu.

One of the goals of my Conversation article was to make the cold chain distribution issues more visible in order that appropriate preparedness measures would be taken, both nationally and globally, so that, once vaccines are approved, time is not wasted and the vaccines do not go to waste as well.

Many thanks to all those who have responded, including the amazing journalists, who continue to keep this important topic in the news!

And, just before publishing this blogpost, I received another inquiry from a journalist requesting an interview because of my article in The Conversation!

Postscript on My INFORMS Webinar: Blood, Sweat, and PPEs: Rescuing Perishable Product Supply Chains and Impacting Policy Through Analytics

First, I would like to thank the INFORMS Practice Section for the invitation to deliver the inaugural webinar in its Analytics Series, which took place last Friday. The title of my webinar was: "Blood, Sweat, and PPEs: Rescuing Perishable Product Supply Chains and Impacting Policy Through Analytics." 

As noted on the INFORMS Section's webpage: the goal of the webinar series is to bring awareness of the value of applying analytics to real-world problems. The series is organized by Dr. Patricia Neri of Bayer Crop Science and Dr. Carrie Beam of the University of Arkansas.

Also, special thanks to all those who were able to join in. I was thrilled to hear from colleagues in many different countries, who were able to Zoom in.

This blogpost is a postscript on the webinar with links to my presentation and to the full webinar, which is now on youtube, and answers to questions in the Q&A.

That morning began with getting ready for the virtual event.

The logistics of the webinar, which was carried out via Zoom, was handled by Beth West and Mary Leszczynski of INFORMS and it was exciting to have it be open to the public and to have the registration be free. 

We had had multiple practice sessions, since there were slides to be included prior to my presentation about the series as well as slides afterwards, providing a link to this blog and noting that the webinar would also be posted on youtube.

Dr. Neri gave a lovely introduction to my presentation.

In the webinar, I spoke about a variety of perishable product supply chains impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, including: food, PPE, and blood supply chains, and also provided some hope based on convalescent plasma as a treatment, under the reality of competition.  I discussed both earlier relevant research as well as research that we have conducted on supply chain disruptions and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic. And, I also spoke about the impact of analytics during the Covid-19 pandemic on policy, including our work on blood supply chains. I emphasized the importance of the work being done by our Operations Research and Analytics community and also highlighted inspiring younger generations.

The slides of my presentation have now been posted.

The webinar is now also online, thanks to INFORMS. 

Dr. Carrie Beam expertly handled the Q&A.

And, as promised, since we did not get a chance to address all the questions, below I provide a list of questions, followed by my response. For completeness, I also include the questions that were "live."

Question from Don Mustard of Canada: Covid has exposed a global supply chain that was not prepared for a global pandemic. What is the role of government in reinforcing supply chains' structure against disaster, ensuring that disruption is minimized?

My answer: This is an excellent question. I believe that national governments must be involved in disaster mitigation and preparedness and clearly this pandemic is a healthcare disaster. First and foremost, the government must ensure that we are prepared for a worst case scenario, as we are are experiencing now. This is an extreme disaster given the impact and prevalence over space and time (unlike an earthquake, flood, tsunami, etc.).  Many of the supply chains that have been most severely disrupted now are being referred to as "critical infrastructure" and the associated workers are truly essential ones. The government should guarantee that we have adequate stockpiles of  PPEs and medical supplies as well as the capacity to produce them, including vaccines. Investing in food supply chains is also warranted. As I discussed in my presentation, labor in many industries, including food processing, has suffered in the pandemic, resulting in product shortages. Having healthcare for workers will keep everyone safer and make our supply chains more resilient.

Question from Dr. Angelika Leskovskaya of Southern Methodist University: Will it be possible to send slides and probably recording after the webinar?

My answer: The links to the slide and the recording of the webinar are given above. I will check with INFORMS about further broadcasting of the information. Thank you.

Question from Don Mustard of Canada: Perhaps could you discuss your thoughts on the concept that Covid didn't create problems in the supply chain, but rather, just exposed them... and what your confidence that we will learn from this (vs. revert to our historical patterns of behavior).

My answer: Clearly, the pandemic dramatically illustrated to everyone not only the importance of supply chains but also the need for flexibility, agility, and having multiple suppliers, among many other important characteristics. At the same time, the necessity of closing many businesses,  incorporating social distancing measures in production and processing facilities, dealing with employee illnesses and fears of contagion, modifying freight service provision, etc., put many additional stressors on the supply chains. I do believe that Operations Research and Analytics will be utilized and valued more by many organizations as a result of the pandemic because our tools are extremely useful and can identify vulnerabilities (as well as synergies) in supply chain networks. We (firms, organizations, governments) cannot turn our backs on the lessons learned.

Question from Dr. Duncan Klett, Cofounder of Kinaxis: It seems logical that national stockpiles should be filled to close to necessary levels, then supplies would flow through the stockpile so the oldest get sent out to hospitals for immediate use, keeping the stockpile "current."

My answer: Yes, one would think that that would be and should be the case. I believe that some were surprised that masks actually can, in effect, perish over time because their quality deteriorates. This should have been addressed and mitigated way before the pandemic hit us.  

Question from Dr. Amir Masoumi of Manhattan College: Once the volume of blood donations and transfusions across the US are back to "normal", in which direction do you see the blood banking industry moving with respect to balancing the supply and demand for blood products?

My answer: I believe that there will have to be more cooperation, rather than competition among blood service organizations. That was actually one of the themes in a paper co-authored with you and with Dr. Min Yu that I mentioned in my webinar presentation. Also, with the demand for convalescent plasma, obtained through apheresis of blood donations, as I had discussed in my presentation, which is emerging as a possible treatment for Covid-19, there is now some added hope for hospitalized patients battling this disease. There is competition now for the valuable convalescent plasma but, ultimately, there should be system optimization and allocation accordingly.


Question from Rishabh Bhandawat, PhD Candidate at the University of Buffalo: Would centralized inventory with some sort of sharing mechanism have helped with Covid? 

Answer: I think that definitely, yes, especially in the case of the National Stockpile of PPEs and medical supplies. However, as I had mentioned in the webinar, there were not sufficient amounts plus there was deterioration in the quality (hence, perishability) of many items, which exacerbated the shortages. We need a sufficient centralized inventory and management of the critical needs supplies along with a fair distribution to points of demand.

Question from Dr. Robin Lougee of IBM: Does Anna want to talk about the role of blockchain?

Answer: Time did not permit a discussion on blockchain.  However, how blockchain can influence supply chains in the pandemic would be an excellent topic for a future webinar. Thanks.

Question from Dr. Robin Lougee of IBM: What's the NEXT presentation in the series?

Answer: The next webinar will take place on July 10, 2020 and is entitled, "Inventory, Packages, Price Points and People: An Inside Look at leading Technical People." The webinar will consist of panelists who will address: "How do the best geeks in the industry motivate and manage their technical teams. The panelists will be: Dr. Pooja Dewan of Otis Elevator, Dr. Anne Robinson of Kinaxis, Dr. Mallory Freeman of UPS, and Dr. Pallav Chhaochhria of Citi.

Many thanks for all the great questions! During the Q&A there were also comments sent by Marino Biagini and by Teja Krasek (from Slovenia), which were very much appreciated.

There was a glitch at the beginning of the webinar, which was quickly corrected, by the projector unmuting the computer. The Chat facility was disabled by the INFORMS folks due to prior issues for security reasons. 

Being "first" in anything is always risky, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And with technology and the Internet there is always the possibility of a disruption.

I like forward to further discussions and important contributions from our community during these challenging times and when the pandemic is past us.

Fascinating Visit to KSE (Kyiv School of Economics) in Ukraine as an International Academic Board Member

Over a year ago I was invited to serve on the International Academic Board of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in Ukraine. I accepted this appointment enthusiastically since I believe that it is important to help to support education in economics and business in this unique country. Plus, it was a big honor to be appointed to this board, which includes faculty from the US, Canada, and Europe.

It was extra special to see Professor Larry Samuelson of Yale University on the board since both of us had a magical time as Visiting Fellows at All Souls College at Oxford University in 2016. Also, the Nobel laureate in Economics, Professor Roger Myerson of the University of Chicago, is also a member of the International Academic Board of KSE.

Last year, I Skyped into the board meeting, but, this year, I was determined to make my way to Kyiv. As another board member - Professor Charlie Becker of Duke University told me - it is very important to have one's physical presence there to offer insights, to take part in discussions, and to meet with students, faculty, and staff.

Now this was a bit of a logistical challenge, since the meetings were over the weekend and I teach Thursdays and Tuesdays and did not want to miss a class. So, last Thursday morning I taught my Transportation and Logistics class at the Isenberg School and then headed to Boston Logan airport for a Delta flight to Amsterdam and then onwards to Kyiv via KLM (I had hoped). Well, while we were still on the tarmac at Logan, a part of the engine arrived and was assembled and my window seatmate could see this being done. Two engine checks were successful, so off we went on a "maiden" voyage, with a delay (and I had a short connection). So, despite the cheery crew telling us all that we would make our connections since "it only takes 5 minutes to disembark the plane," when we landed, we had to deplane via the stairs and then got bussed. I missed my KLM flight to Kyiv, despite running to the gate, and spent almost 5 hours in the Amsterdam Schiphol airport (which, luckily, is one of my favorites). I managed to get a flight to Kyiv on Ukraine Air, which I had flown on a while back from Kyiv to Simferopol in Crimea and back (quite the adventure, I must say, and I had blogged about that conference in Yalta).

The International Academic Board meeting took place all day Saturday at KSE in Kyiv and I was also welcomed to take part in the Board of Directors meeting all day on Sunday.

I would walk with Dr. Becker and Dr. Rick Ericson from the IBIS hotel to KSE each morning and it was fascinating to see the buildings, landscape, shops, infrastructure, and signs in Ukrainian.

In the photo below, another board member, Dr. Torbjorn Becker of Sweden, is in the background, in front of KSE and the car.

I was very impressed by the students, who have matriculated into the various Master's programs at KSE, and I had the pleasure of meeting entrepreneurs and even a medical doctor and a former minister of the Ukrainian Parliament! Their English was outstanding and I learned that children begin learning English in Ukraine in elementary school.

It was so special to meet the very motivated faculty, who are pushing for reforms and educating this generation. Moreover, I was absolutely delighted to hear that a colleague of mine at UMass Amherst, economics professor Dr. Ina Ganguli, had had a Fulbright at KSE in 2003, so we took a group photo of faculty who know her, which I forwarded to her. Her husband, Dr. Bogdan Prokopovych, is from Kyiv and is a fellow faculty member of mine at the Isenberg School.

 There was even KSE "swag" on display.

The Management Team at KSE has many females and I was very impressed by the number of female students that we got a chance to meet. The research being conducted there is very innovative and has immense potential given the tech talents of many individuals as well as the natural resources that Ukraine has.

We had wonderful coffee breaks and meals and, after a very fulfilling and busy Saturday, we took part in a dinner cruise (with dancing) on the Dnipro River, which was a KSE alumni event. I met alums who now work in major consulting companies, the government, the energy sector, etc. - very impressive! It was extra special to have Dr. Timofiy Mylanov at this and other events. He is the Honorary President of KSE and was recently appointed the Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine! Amazingly, he is also an Economics Professor at the University of Pittsburgh (on leave).

The bridge in the photo above is over the Dnipro River and the light show was magnificent!

The beauty of Kyiv is spectacular and I managed to fit in a few walks to take in a number of sights.

I might add that the food was delicious at the hotel and at the various KSE events and I got a chance to have some borshcht but passed on the stuffed cabbage at the breakfast buffet.

I was delighted that I got asked for directions multiple times in both Ukrainian and in Russian. Ukrainian is my first language (I was born in Canada) and I have a degree from Brown University in Russian Language and Literature (as well as multiple degrees in Applied Math, specializing in Operations Research). My PhD dissertation was half on transportation and half on spatial economics.

Kyiv is quite a green city and I enjoyed the botanical gardens.

I purchased chocolates to bring back to my students, relatives, and friends, and, I must admit that the chocolates made in the factory of the former President of Ukraine, Poroshenko, are fabulous!

I made my flight from Kyiv to Amsterdam on Monday afternoon and then made it to Boston, also on KLM. Bright and early on Tuesday morning, I taught my Transportation and Logistics class. My students at the Isenberg School of Management were very interested to hear about my experiences in Ukraine, a country certainly in the news lately. And they devoured the box of chocolates below that I had brought back just for them.

I look forward to working with the faculty of KSE and its International Academic Board in order to further the success of its programs, faculty, and students. Reform is challenging but, if done right, will be transformative.