Honored to Be Named a Fellow of The OR Society

The official good news arrived a few weeks ago and, this past week, I received the certificate.

I am humbled and thrilled to have been named a Fellow of the Operational Research (OR) Society,  which is based in the United Kingdom.

It has been quite an amazing year, thanks to both The OR Society and to another professional society that I am a member (long-time one) of - that of INFORMS.

On December 5, 2024, I delivered the Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society in London, thanks to The OR Society, and blogged about the magical experience here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

Below is a collage of photos to capture this truly memorable experience:

An article that I wrote about my  Blackett Lecture was published (and is feely accessible this year) in The OR Society flagship journal The Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706

And, just this past week, on the day before Thanksgiving, an article that I wrote with my Isenberg School of Management PhD student, Samirasadat Samadi, on tariffs, supply chain networks, and labor was published in JORS: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2592758

I am so grateful to outstanding professional societies for providing us with communities and support.

Thank you to The Or Society Fellows Committee, its Board, and to those who wrote letters of support for me!

Many thanks also to INFORMS for recognizing my work (and thanks to my students and collaborators) with the 2025 President's Award: https://www.informs.org/News-Room/INFORMS-Releases/Awards-Releases/Anna-Nagurney-Honored-with-2025-INFORMS-President-s-Award

Our work continues.

Humbled to Be a Highly Cited Female in Operations Research (OR)

While "diversity" now is being ostracized in the US with the new administration, scientific interest in gender issues continues to be quite intense.

One of my primary fields is Operations Research (sometimes referred to in the UK and Europe as Operational Research). It is a discipline that focuses on quantitative methods for decision-making and I love it!

A fairly recent paper, entitled, "Women Just Wanna Have OR: Young Researchers Interview Expert Researchers," co-authored by Lavinia Amorosi, Rossana Cavagnini, Veronica Dal Sasso, Martina Fischetti, Valentina Morandi and Alice Raffaele, and published in 2021 in Operations Research Forum, interviewed "a group of prominent female professors and affirmed researchers in STEM belonging to different generations, with dissimilar careers and experiences." I was delighted to be interviewed and the article may be accessed here:   https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43069-020-00039-8

In 2024, the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS) published its first discussion paper (suggesting the relevance of the topic): "Gender Equality: Opportunities and Challenges for the OR Community," by Paula Carroll and Annunziata Esposito Amideo: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2024.2343343 This article was followed by a commentary to which twelve individuals (not all female) contributed. Many of the contributors I am delighted to know professionally. I very much enjoyed writing my contribution to the discussion. The commentary can be accessed here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2024.2344969

One theme that caught my attention was citations of the publications of female authors and that there were (very) few females in the top 100 authors in Operations Research.

I am humbled that I am on the list as is Grazia Speranza (who also contributed to the JORS commentary) and whom I recently saw at the EURO Conference in Leeds! 

I am number 56 out of the top 100:

So there are two females in the top 100 authors in OR according to Google Scholar.

And, by the way, I had the pleasure of handling the nomination of Grazia for INFORMS Fellow and she was elected in 2024. We celebrated at the Seattle meeting and you can read my post here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-outstanding-informs-conference-in.html

I am standing next to Grazia in red in the top photo on the left of the above collage. Joining us are Celso Ribeiro (who I also saw in Leeds) and Hani Mahmassani (I also nominated both of them) and Janny Leung, who was also at the EURO Conference.

I believe that awareness will generate action but, most importantly, we need to support one another and to celebrate successes. The field of Operations Research is incredibly rich in both theory and application and is highly relevant in addressing many of the world's most important problems. We need to welcome and work with all the great minds in our profession!

And, for some additional reading, which is quite provocative and entertaining, please see the article, "If Dantzig had a Sister," by Alice Raffaele and Anand Subramanian, published in ORMS Today: https://pubsonline.informs.org/do/10.1287/orms.2024.01.06/full/ Anand is the genius behind the Subject_to video interviews of Operations Researchers. I am a huge fan of his and treasure the photo below taken at the EURO Conference in Leeds.

A Walk Down Memory Lane - I Thoroughly Enjoyed Presenting on 20 Years of EURO Conferences

Congratulations to the European Association of Operational Research Societies (EURO) on its 50th anniversary, which we recently celebrated at the great EURO Conference in Leeds, UK, June 22-25, 2025  https://euro2025leeds.uk/outline-programme/. I am writing this post, which is the 5th one in a series on this conference, while in Edinburgh.

It was a very busy, engaging conference for me, with 2,000 delegates from across the globe. I was honored to give 3 presentations. The first two (on tariffs and trade in the Making an Impact session, and on war risk insurance in the Insurance and finance session) I have already blogged about.  My third presentation was: "Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years."

This talk I gave on the last day of the conference. I  am very grateful to Professor Gerhard-Wilhelm "Willi" Weber for inviting me to speak in the session: "Celebrating 50 Years of EURO."

The session presenters and their titles:

Reflections on Wonderful OR Experiences at EURO Conferences Over 20 Years

Anna Nagurney

Why the 1970’s Was an Important Era in Operational Research, with Personal Reflections

Jyrki Wallenius

Lessons I learned from EURO

Emilio Carrizosa

Fifty years of Data Envelopment Analysis

Ali Emrouznejad, Anna Mergoni, Kristof De Witte.

The session was chaired by the Immediate Past President of EURO - Professor Anita Schöbel.

I have posted the slide deck of my presentation on the Supernetwork Center website: 

https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/EURO20YearsNagurney.pdf

In my slide deck I have many photos of conferees at EURO Conferences in Reykjavik, Poznan, Glasgow, Dublin, and Copenhagen. I was touched that several colleagues, whose photos I had included in my presentation, came to my talk in Leeds! 

Afterwards, we took a group photo, which included the session chair,  Professor Anita Schöbel,  the session organizer, Professor Gerhard-Wilhelm "Willi" Weber, and Graham Rand, who was mentioned in several of the presentations, including mine.

The EURO conference have been expertly organized, with excellent scientific sessions, and, above all, I now can consider many of the wonderful researchers and practitioners that I have met at these conferences to be friends. Science is about research, education, and, most of all, it is about people!

Outstanding Making an Impact Lightning Talks: Honored to Speak on Tariffs, Trade, and OR

This post is the third in a series on the EURO Conference, which took place in Leeds, UK, June 22-25, 2025.

I was honored and delighted to have been invited by Ruth Kaufman to deliver a lighting talk in the Making an Impact session on Monday morning, June 23, of the conference at 8:30AM. All 13 speakers, from several different continents, showed up. The full list of speakers, their presentation titles, and abstracts can be found here: https://euro2025leeds.uk/making-an-impact/. The breadth of topics was fantastic and included algorithms for fighting crime, reducing food waste on airplane flights, and emergency ambulance service planning. 

My presentation was on Tariffs, Trade, and OR.

This session was a truly outstanding beginning to this scientific conference.

Below is photo of the speakers with Ruth Kaufman and Jane Parkin, followed by a photo of the audience.

I have been publishing on tariffs (of different types) for quite a few years now, so I very much enjoyed preparing and delivering my presentation, which is now posted on the Supernetwork Center website: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/EURO2025_MakinganImpact-Tariffs,%20Trade,%20and%20OR.pdf

Excellent Journal Editorial Board Meetings at the EURO Conference in Leeds

The outstanding EURO Conference in Leeds, UK, is now over and this is the second blogpost in a series about this conference. I have been coming to this OR conference since 2006, which was in Reykjavik, Iceland.

One facet of these conferences that I very much enjoy is the editorial board meetings. I have the honor of serving on both the editorial boards of the International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) and the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR). ITOR is the flagship journal of IFORS (International Federation of Operational Research Societies) and EJOR is the flagship journal of EURO (European Association of Operational Research Societies), which, at this year's conference, we celebrated its 50th anniversary. EURO is part of IFORS.

Celso Ribeiro, the EIC of ITOR, travelled all the way from Brazil and our lunch time meeting on Monday, June 23, 2025, was wonderful. The journal is doing very well with thousands of submissions each year. A highlight for me is always seeing Celso and also fellow Associate Editors. 

I enjoyed meeting Sunil Tiwari, who is in the above photo with Kathy Stecke and me. Kathy was the first conferee that I encountered and that was at our hotel in the elevator in Leeds.

And, on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Elsevier, the publisher of EJOR, treated us to a nice lunch and the EIC, Roman Slowinski, shared with us a lot of good news about EJOR. I had the pleasure of being seated next to Michael Yearworth, one of the main editors,  and Shaunna Whittle, publisher of EJOR.

Below is a collage of  photos taken at the editorial board meeting and after lunch.

Thanks so much to the Editors, and to all the Associate Editors, reviewers, and authors of articles published in these important journals that advance scientific knowledge in OR as well as its relevance to so many disciplines!

Serendipity of Great Conferences - the 50th Anniversary of EURO in Leeds

This is the first post of a series on the EURO Conference, which took place June 22-25, 2025 in Leeds, UK. This Operational Research (OR) Conference brought together 2,000 delegates from around the globe and was historic since it also marked the 50th anniversary of the establishment of EURO - the Association of  European Operational Research Societies. There were delegates even from China!

This post is on the serendipity of conferences - it is always a delight to see colleagues in person, some of whom you might not even have realized would be coming.

On Sunday, June 22, 2025, in the hotel elevator, I saw Kathy Stecke of the University of Texas Dallas and we burst out laughing. Then, en route up a big hill to the University to register on Sunday, I was greeted with a warm: Hello! on the street by Razia Amzad of Springer Nature. At registration, it was truly a delight to see Christina Phillips, Graham Rand, Tetyana Romanova, Martine Labbé, and Gendreau Michel! And, amazingly, in my third conference presentation on 20 years of EURO conferences I have photos of many of these wonderful colleagues in my slide deck. A delight was to even see at registration the photographer who took the official photos at my Blackett Lecture at The Royal Society on December 5, 2024, thanks to The OR Society.

Conferences can be very energizing and inspiring from the scientific knowledge exchange perspective to all the wonderful personal connections. On June 24, 2025, after my second conference presentation,  I was thrilled to see Anand Subramanian, the genius behind the Subject_To interview podcasts, who came all the way from Brazil. Then, to meet up with Suresh Sethi, whose passion for life and scholarship fills me with hope, plus to see Kostas Nikolopoulos, one of the outstanding editors of the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS) of The OR Society, and its publisher Richard Goodman, along with Sunil Tiwari, whose dynamism and intellect delight, made for an extraordinary afternoon. Joining us was Pritha Dutta, one of my former Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst PhD students, who traveled all the way from Portland, Oregon, where she is now an Assistant Professor at Willamette University. Pritha presented on her latest research on humanitarian operations with applications to India.

After my third conference presentation, and the wrapup of the conference, as we were heading to the Leeds train station from the hotel, I saw Senay Solak, who is the Chair of my OIM Department at the Isenberg School of Management! We were delighted to see each other and walked together to the station, each heading onwards on our journeys.

Many thanks to EURO and to The OR Society for such wonderful conference experiences, which further emphasize the importance of face to face professional meetings.

And, then at the Leeds train station, I saw Janny Leung of Macao, who actually chaired the session that Senay spoke at the day before. We had an excellent conversation about some initiatives. 

Thrilled that My Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," is Now Published and Free Access!

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to The Operational Research Society for publishing my  Blackett Lecture paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," in its flagship journal, the Journal of the Operational Research Society (JORS),  and for making it free to access through 2025! JORS recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and is the oldest journal in Operational Research (OR).

The full paper can be downloaded from the link:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01605682.2025.2494706?src=exp-la#d1e107

For a post on the incredible experience of delivering the Blackett Lecture on December 5, 2024 at The Royal Society in London, England, click here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/12/an-incredible-blackett-lecture.html

I have enjoyed, over the years, reading other Blackett Lecture papers and have even used several of them in my classes. Deeply honored to have been selected as a Blackett Lecturer and to be "in the company" of such former Blackett Lecturers as: Arnold Barnett, Luc Van Wassenhove, and William Cooper, who has since passed away. 

Three Papers Accepted in One Week!

My Mother always said that "good news comes in threes" and this week we certainly had some much appreciated good news.

My paper, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," which is based on the Blackett Lecture that I delivered at The Royal Society in London, England on December 5, 2024, thanks to The Operational Research Society, was accepted for publication in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. And, incredibly, I received the galleys of the paper yesterday (a Saturday) and they were in great shape. Below is the first page.

And, since the Blackett Lecture experience was so special I include a collage below made of photos from the event, with deep gratitude for all that took part.

Many thanks also to The Operational Research Society for posting my Blackett Lecture online on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LsIEsi-m0

Also, we heard from the International Transactions in Operational Research that the paper, "Integrated Crop and Cargo War Risk Insurance: Application to Ukraine," that I co-authored with my PhD student Ismael Pour and Professor Borys Kormych of the Odesa Law Academy in Ukraine, was accepted for publication. We hope to receive the galleys soon. Professor Kormych is a Virtual Scholar in our terrific UMass Amherst - Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) partnership. He was in the first cohort and is also in the second cohort. You can read more about the Virtual Scholars and their Faculty Hosts at the Isenberg School of Management here: https://www.umass.edu/global-affairs/news/kyiv-school-economics-and-university-massachusetts-amherst-launch-second-round-virtual-scholar

We heard the good news shortly after Ismael Pour presented the paper in the doctoral seminar in Management Science that I am teaching this semester. We took the nice photo below with him and Yongdong Chen and Samira Samadi (both also PhD students in the seminar) after Ismael's presentation.

Ismael will present this paper at the POMS Conference in Atlanta next month.

Also, Samira (full first name is Samirasadat) and I got the paper, "Multicommodity Trade, Tariffs, and Rerouting," accepted in a very special volume: Convex and Variational Analysis with Applications: In Honor of Terry Rockafellar’s 90th Birthday. Panos M. Pardalos and Themistocles M. Rassias, Editors, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. This is a very interesting and timely paper, given the trade wars that are happening now in real time. It discusses the evasion of tariffs and impacts through rerouting, with minimum processing, except for repackaging/relabeling in other countries.

We are grateful to the Editors and reviewers of our papers.

An Incredible Blackett Lecture Experience at the Royal Society in London

We returned yesterday from London, in time for me to teach my last Transportation and Logistics class of the Fall 2024 semester this morning.

It was a whirlwind week. My husband and I flew from Boston Logan on December 3 (after I taught my class), and, after a few hours of sleep, we had the pleasure of taking part in an Isenberg School get together hosted by my former PhD student, Dr. Stavros Siokos, the co-founder of Astarte Capital. It was a lovely event with Dean Anne P. Massey taking part as well as Senior Associate Dean Bill Brown, plus several Isenberg School development folks, alums and friends.

And, on December 5, it was time for my Blackett Lecture and the annual awards given out by The Operational Research (OR) Society of the United Kingdom. 

The venue was The Royal Society. This society is the oldest scientific society, dating back to 1660. The event was lovely - beautifully organized with the awards taking place first, followed by my one hour Blackett Lecture, a cocktail hour, and then a delicious dinner. The OR Society will be posting a video of my lecture on its youtube channel soon as well as professional photographs on its Flickr.

I was incredibly honored to have the opportunity to deliver my Blackett Lecture, "NetwORks and Policies: OR to the Rescue," at the beautiful venue and to an audience of amazing colleagues, academics and practitioners, as well as friends and invited guests. I would like to acknowledge the President of The OR Society Gilbert Owusu for the warm introduction and for so expertly handling the Q&A, and Gavin Blackett, Carol McLaughlin, Sarah Davies, and Caitlin Griffin of  The OR Society for the hospitality. Special thanks to Graham Rand, Edmund Burke, and Robert Fildes for the conversations and welcome. It's not every day that one gets to be in a photograph next to an oil painting of the Nobel laureate and Founder of OR in the UK - Patrick Blackett! 

It was an honor to have the Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst Dean Anne P. Massey and Senior Associate Dean William Brown in attendance as well as Diane Isenberg and University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD alumnus Stavros Siokos. Recognizing so many in the audience because of professional interactions over the years, made for a very enjoyable experience - thank you all! The slide deck of my presentation has been posted: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/visuals/BlackettLecture-Nagurney-2024.pdf

Some additional background on becoming the 2024 Blackett Lecturer can be found here: https://annanagurney.blogspot.com/2024/11/deeply-honored-to-have-been-selected-to.html

Congratulations to all the award recipients recognized at this very memorable event. The impact of our great discipline is humbling and inspiring. Working together we can continue to make positive change. 

Deeply Honored to Have Been Selected to Deliver the 2024 Blackett Lecture at the Royal Society in London

You probably remember the day that you received some wonderful news and also the day that you received sad news.

This post is about the former.

I was at a conference in Kalamata, Greece in honor of the 70th birthday of Panos M. Pardalos last summer when the great news arrived. I had been selected by The Operational Research (OR) Society to deliver the 2024 Blackett Lecture at the Royal Society in London. Honestly, as I was reading the letter, the tears started to flow since I was so touched that my hard work was being recognized. 

Patrick Blackett, after whom the lecture is named, was the founder of  OR in the United Kingdom. In the US, we, typically, say "Operations Research." He was also awarded a Nobel Prize in physics.

The abstract of my lecture as well as a link to registration can be found here.

The letter from The OR Society, signed by the Executive Director Seb Hargreaves and by the President of The OR Society, Gilbert Owusu, is below.

I have been enjoying preparing my lecture, which will give a panoramic view of OR and policies from tolls for congested urban transportation networks to tariffs and quotas for agricultural supply chain networks. I will be bringing in a lot of personal experiences as well.

I am thrilled that there will even be guests from New England coming.

Some Tips on Networking - Terrific EURO WISDOM Panel in Copenhagen

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a Networking panel at the start of the EURO 2024 Conference in Copenhagen. The panel was organized by Paula Carroll and Annunziata Esposito Amideo. Joining me on the panel was life coach Margaret Collins. The panel attracted an excellent audience, very enthusiastic and energetic.

The WISDOM Forum aims "to provide a platform to support, empower and encourage the participation of all genders in Operational Research within EURO." It is very active in organizing events, engaging in social media and has various terrific initiatives; more info on its website. Other related such forums include the WORMS forum of the professional society of INFORMS.

What we emphasized on the panel included the following:

1. The importance of networking.

2. Strategies for developing networks of visibility.

3. Communication skills to deliver your message.

4. How to deal with nerves or anxiety.

As an academic, who also has worked in high tech consulting in the defense sector, I noted the importance of being engaged with practice and the serendipity of meeting people and expanding your network, whether at conferences (a fabulous venue for networking) or even during travel, such as on planes. I spoke about reaching out to researchers that I admired, early on, in order to gather their wisdom and professional advice. I shared that George Dantzig, one of the founders of the field of OR, came to the first conference presentation that I ever gave, which was at the Mathematical Programming Symposium at MIT, and the kind words that he shared. I also acknowledged my PhD dissertation advisor, the late Stella Dafermos, in my presentation. I was her first PhD student. I showed the audience my academic genealogy, which includes Maxwell, Newton, and Galileo!

On our panel, the importance of social media was emphasized, which can create opportunities and invitations, and in keeping your profile up to date. In addition. Margaret, through her nicely interactive presentation, told the audience to have prepared a short introduction of yourself (perhaps several). One should also think about whom you might network with. Different people have distinct comfort zones, and it is important to acknowledge that some may be introverts or extroverts, or somewhere in between.

I focused on networking as your career progresses.

My presentation can be downloaded here. Early in one's career, one networks laterally and up, and it is important as one's career progresses to mentor and support others. Taking risks is also important since new experiences can help one to grow both personally and professionally. I also spoke about networking with journalists and decision-makers in order to have one's research make a greater impact. I emphasized the relevance of writing Letters to the Editor and OpEds to broaden one's reach.

Ultimately, networking is about people, and professional societies are playing a big role in bringing us together, through conferences, newsletters, opportunities for leadership, and various means of support and enhanced visibility.

Many thanks to the organizers of the EURO 2024 conference for the lovely city location venue of Copenhagen. More info on the conference here.

Also, early in my presentation, I congratulated both Paula and Annunziata on the publication of their discussion paper (the inaugural one): "Gender equality: opportunities and challenges for the OR community,"  in the Journal of the Operational Research Society. Their paper is now trending, along with the set of invited commentaries, which I contributed one to. These publications are open access and are very informative and relevant.   Relationships matter and networks do as well.

The Amazing 60th (Diamond Anniversary) Conference of The OR Society at Lancaster University

I have been back from England less than four days, having returned from the fabulous OR60 Conference at Lancaster University late last Wednesday.

This very special diamond anniversary Operational Research (OR) Conference was one I could not miss, having been invited by OR ambassador extraordinaire - Graham Rand and The OR Society to deliver the opening plenary talk, which kicked off the conference on September 11, 2018. As I had written about in my previous blogpost, I also had been invited to speak at the inaugural Early Career Researcher Workshop held at the same university, September 9 and 10. So, after teaching my classes  the first week of the new academic year at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst I was off to England!

It was a big honor to give a plenary at this conference and I did a lot of research in preparing it. I delivered it at what was, in effect, about 4:30AM my body time, but since I am an early bird, this worked for me.

My plenary talk has now been posted, due to numerous requests that I received. There were over 400 conferees at my hour presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed presenting and addressing the very interesting and thoughtful questions that followed. Throughout the day I had the pleasure of meeting both doctoral students and senior researchers not only from England but throughout the world. I was delighted to even see my UMass Boston colleague, Professor Michael Johnson, who is a leader in Community OR, arrive and I enjoyed his presentation very much.

We were not the only faculty from Massachusetts (New England) at OR60. I also met female colleagues from Bentley University and WPI.

It was quite special to have support provided for my plenary from the publisher Springer and I enjoyed meeting the Editor and seeing three of my books on exhibit there! A shout out to my co-authors: Professors Amir H. Masoumi, Min Yu, Dong "Michelle" Li, and Ladimer S. Nagurney as well as to my co-editors: Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos!

It was a pleasure to have the photo below taken with Graham Rand, resplendent in an OR tie, and two fabulous STORi doctoral students, Emma and Lucy. The student volunteers in their bright red t-shirts were tremendously helpful.

Lunches and snacks were provided and there was even a boat cruise and dinner and dancing (which I missed because I had a lot of travel early the morning after back to the US).

I enjoyed meeting new colleagues in OR and thank everyone for their appreciation and kind words regarding my plenary talk.

It was a special thrill to meet several colleagues that I had only "met" through Twitter previously!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my wonderful hosts as well as Hilary Wilkes and Charlene Timewell of  The OR Society for making my travel and stay so smooth and comfortable.

A special thanks to the staff at Lancaster House for the excellent and very cozy accommodations and the delicious British breakfasts, which kept me well-fortified.

Operational Research (or Operations Research, as we say in the US) is in fabulous shape and OR60 will be one for the record books is terms of excellent organization, hospitality, friendliness, and attention to detail and I am eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of it.

An Outstanding Early Career Researcher Workshop in OR in England

When the invitation arrived from Distinguished University Professor Kevin Glazebrook of the School of Management at Lancaster University in England I was delighted and quickly accepted. I was asked to present a plenary talk at the inaugural Early Career Researcher (ECR) Workshop at his university, September 8-9, 2018. This workshop, which was sponsored by The OR Society, was organized for advanced doctoral students, postdocs, and junior faculty, and was to take place immediately before the diamond anniversary OR60 Conference (at which I was to give the opening plenary talk and had graciously been invited by Graham Rand, also of Lancaster University).

There was some juggling, since the new academic year began on September 4 at UMass Amherst and, hence, I would have to make sure that the class that I would miss teaching would be covered (and it was, thanks to two of my doctoral students).

This was going to be my third trip to Lancaster University. I had spoken there when I was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College at Oxford University in 2016 and I also taught a Master Class there on Network Equilibrium in March 2018, during spring break at UMass Amherst.

Luckily, although my trip was whirlwind, with me leaving on September 7 and returning on September 12, since Aer Lingus now has a flight from our local airport, Bradley, to Dublin, it was quite manageable. I flew to Dublin, then onwards to Manchester, and was picked up on the last leg (and driven via taxi) to Lancaster. While in Lancaster, I always stay at the Lancaster House, which is one of my favorite hotels, and I even have a favorite room there! Lugging my suitcase up the stairs in the rain to the regional plane in Dublin and then down in the rain in Manchester was not quite pleasant, but a small price to pay for a fabulous time professionally and personally. Below is a photo of the entrance to Lancaster House.

The workshop was held in the hotel, which made everything very convenient.

Professor Kevin Glazebrook gave the opening plenary and set the stage for the workshop. I was thrilled to see that there were workshop participants from throughout Great Britain and even from as far as Thailand, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia!

Special thanks to Charlene Timewell of The OR Society for handling the logistics of my stay and for such a warm welcome (it was chilly weatherwise my entire time in Lancaster but a break from the heatwaves in Massachusetts).

The workshop included 5 minute presentations by each early career researcher and it was a pleasure to listen to their research and near term plans.

My plenary was entitled: Network Journeys: For the Love of Operational Research.

In the US,  OR stands for Operations Research and, in Britain, for Operational Research, but we are part of the same professional discipline and community. I was asked by Professor Glazebrook to include autobiographical material in my plenary talk so I did and my presentation is now posted. It contains a lot of useful advice that I have accumulated and acquired over the years. I thoroughly enjoyed preparing this plenary and also in giving it.

The first evening we had a delicious workshop banquet and chatted and exchanged experiences with a lot of laughter. The menu was fabulous.

Also assisting and taking part in the workshop, in addition to the early career researchers, were: Professors Christine Currie, Paul Harper, and Arne Strauss, with Professor Edmund Burke giving an extremely useful presentation on: "How to Write a Great Proposal." Also offering advice were: Dr. Alain Zemkoho and Dr. Stephen Maher. The early career researchers had a homework assignment before the workshop to evaluate a series of actual proposals and to rank them (with thanks to the senior researchers who shared the proposals for such an educational purpose). There was also an excellent presentation by a representative from Taylor & Francis on "How to get Published."

The full workshop program is provided below.

The atmosphere was very congenial with an easy exchange of ideas and experiences and very worthwhile for all in attendance! The workshop, if I may, was also a lot of fun.

Special thanks to the energetic and inspiring early career researchers - the future of our profession is in wonderful hands! It was very special to meet you and I wish you the fulfillment of all of your dreams.