Do You Remember Your First Journal Article Acceptance? Celebrating Several "Firsts!"

Last Wednesday, we had the great honor of hosting the Rector of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Dr. Tymofii Brik at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The day began with a 2 hour symposium, under the auspices of the International Programs Office, which is directed by the Vice Provost for Global Affairs Dr. Trivedi Kalpen. The visit of Rector Brik and the day's events were to mark the outstanding 1 year partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE. Below is a photo taken after the symposium with 13 scholars from Ukraine zooming in and with (l-r) Professors Uzzo Muysal, Lauren McCarthy, Rector Brik, yours truly, Ina Ganguli, Alicia Johnson, Vice Provost Trivedi, and Professor Bogdan Prokopovych in front with the Ukrainian flag. The symposium consisted of introductory remarks by university leaders, as well as by Rector Brik, and had a total of 4 panels. Faculty hosts of scholars through our partnership participated and we took a joint photo featured below.

And, shortly before the very busy, inspiring day began, we received a message from Springer Nature with great news that the paper, "Exchange Rates and Multicommodity International Trade: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Modeling with Policy Instruments via Variational Inequalities," co-authored by Dr. Oleg Nivievskyi and Dr. Pavlo Martyshev of KSE and by my Isenberg School of Management PhD student Dana Hassani and me, had been accepted for publication in the Journal of Global Optimization!

This is the first paper acceptance for my PhD student Dana Hassani and the first paper that we have co-authored with scholars in Ukraine that we have been working with through our partnership!

Both Dr. Nivievskyi and Dr. Martyshev spoke at our symposium on the first panel, "Agricultural Supply Chains in Ukraine in Wartime," which I moderated.

A preprint of the paper can be downloaded here.

 

We acknowledge the anonymous reviewers of our paper and the Editor for the constructive comments and suggestions on the Acknowledgment section of our paper. We also acknowledge the support provided by the UMass Amherst - KSE partnership, which has been a bright beacon of light in wartime and has helped to reduce brain drain from Ukraine.

The Visit of the President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Tymofiy Mylovanov to UMass Amherst

On February 22, 2023, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting Tymofiy Mylovanov, the President of the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), at UMass Amherst. He had left Ukraine about 10 days earlier, after successfully crossing the border. 

This visit was extremely meaningful since, in wartime, UMass Amherst had signed a series of memoranda with the Kyiv School of Economics with UMass Amherst releasing this press release on the partnership. 

The visit was planned with great attention to detail by the International Programs Office, under the leadership of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs,  Kalpen Trivedi. Special thanks go to his Executive Assistant, Kim Stender, for finalizing an itinerary that included Vice Provost Kalpen Trivedi, Provost Tricia Serio, Emeritus Provost John McCarthy, Isenberg Dean Anne P. Massey, the Dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences Karl Rethemeyer, and the Interim Dean of the College of Natural Sciences Nate Whitaker! UMass Amherst released this article on his visit and the timing could not have been better because the day after UMass was closed due to inclement weather!

There were multiple brainstorming sessions that took place with faculty and additional administrators. The conversations were moving and very inspiring. UMass Amherst is helping to reduce Brain Drain from Ukraine by funding 15 Virtual Scholars that have been matched with Faculty Hosts at the Isenberg School (we have 9 and room for 1 more); the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences has 5; and the College of Natural Sciences has 1.  All the Virtual Scholars remain in Ukraine and the Faculty Hosts are working in collaboration with them on multiple fascinating projects, many of which are also relevant to the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine. This support also shows the scholars that they are not alone. The research collaborations have already generated papers that have been submitted to journals as well as submissions to conferences! On November 30, 2022, the Isenberg School welcomed its Virtual Scholars through a special event that I had blogged about. The majority of the Virtual Scholars in Ukraine joined us via Zoom from a bomb shelter at KSE.  The Isenberg School wrote up this special event and our Virtual Scholars program. The School of Social and Behavioral Sciences is working on its welcome event for its Virtual Scholars, which we expect to take place in March. We are also planning a Virtual Symposium this spring featuring all the Virtual Scholars who are part of the UMass Amherst - KSE partnership. It is important to note that the Virtual Scholars include faculty from KSE, from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, the National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Volodymyr East Ukrainian National University, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and even an advisor to the Ukrainian government.

It was wonderful to have President Mylovanov join Ken Reade of the International Programs Office, Bogdan Prokopovych, a Ukrainian colleague of mine at the Isenberg School, and me for lunch at The Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst.

We were able to get President Mylovanov to the airport for the next leg of his journey and are pleased to report that he has now made it back to Ukraine. Earlier today, I was at a Zoom meeting of the Co-Chairs of the Board of Directors of KSE, and Mylovanov joined us from a vehicle that he was in while in transit in Ukraine. Looking forward to more joint initiatives through the truly unique partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE.

I leave you with a photo collage constructed to capture this historic visit. Looking forward to others and, of course, to victory for Ukraine and peace.

Thanks to all who made this visit a reality and so very productive and inspiring! Much good can be accomplished by working together.

The Terrific UMass Amherst - Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) Partnership and Virtual Scholars in Ukraine

It has been almost two months since we held our welcome event for the Virtual Scholars in Ukraine who are being supported as part of the partnership established between the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), with the Isenberg School of Management hosting the event. Below is a screenshot of our welcome event that took place on November 30, 2022. Many of the Virtual Scholars were in a bomb shelter at the Kyiv School of Economics. Impressively, the technology worked and the event was truly special. 

During the welcome event, we heard welcome remarks from Rector Tymofii Brik of KSE, the Vice Provost for Global Affairs at UMass Amherst Kalpen Trivedi, and the Isenberg School of Management Dean Anne P. Massey. I have posted the slide deck of my remarks.

The Isenberg School of Management presently has 8 Virtual Scholars in Ukraine working with Faculty Hosts with more Virtual Scholars on the horizon. The Isenberg School published this nice article on the welcome event. More information on the partnership, which, I believe, is an exceptional one and a model that other universities can emulate, can be found in the press release issues by UMass Amherst.

The PIE News - thanks to Maureen Manning - provided additional coverage of this partnership.

I am grateful to KSE Rector Brik and to UMass Amherst Provost Emeritus John McCarthy plus Vice Provost for Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi and to Isenberg School Dean Anne P. Massey for providing the incredible support for this partnership. Thanks also to the Isenberg School Selection Committee: Associate Dean George Milne, Finance Department Chair Nikunj Kapadia, and Professor Bogdan Prokopovych for assistance with selecting the Virtual Scholars and helping with the Faculty Host "matches."

Special acknowledgment of my Isenberg School colleagues from Operations and Information Management (OIM), Finance, Management, Marketing, and Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) for being Faculty Hosts. They, along with the Virtual Scholars, are listed below with the projects also noted.

Elena Besedina, from KSE, will be researching non-tariff trade barriers and impacts on Ukrainian agriculture. Host: Anna Nagurney, OIM

Nina Chala, at the National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, is working on the motivation of consumer choice when consumer goods are produced using green energy. Host: Alicia Johnson, Marketing

Yuriy Dyachenko is at the Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University (his university was bombed) and he also holds an appointment at the National University of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy. His project is on improving business and public security using behavioral economics. Host: Muzzo Uysal, HTM

Iuliia Kuntsevych, at KSE, will study how business processes can be better managed and enhanced for greater efficiency. Host: Nora Junaid, OIM

Pavlo Martyshev, at KSE, is working on measuring the economic efficiency of alternative ways of exporting agricultural products from Ukraine. Host: Anna Nagurney, OIM

Viktor Maziarchuk is an advisor to the chairman of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine. His project is on the influence of the war in Ukraine on the state budget and peculiarities of MPs' (Members of Parliament) amendments to the state budget and budget efficiency. Host: Anya Mkrtchyan, Finance

Maksym Obrizan, at KSE, is using the household budget survey (HBS) of Ukraine for 2020 (and later years when they become available) in order to identify the determinants of catastrophic health expenditures before the war. Host: Ina Ganguli, Management and Economics

Pavlo Prokopovych, at KSE, will investigate whether his approach for the existence of equilibria in Bayesian games can be used in first price auctions with a reserve price. Host: Anna Nagurney, OIM.

The challenges are immense now in Ukraine and that includes higher education with the missiles, blackouts, and Internet disruptions. Nevertheless, the research made possible through the support for the Virtual Scholars continues and it is heartwarming to see the friendships that are being made and the scientific investigations that are being conducted. I am delighted and inspired that already there are two papers completed and submitted to journals and a paper that will be presented at a conference next month. Other papers are being worked on and the excitement that the collaborations are generating are great to hear about! Plus, a Virtual Scholar, just this past week, spoke about his work at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and acknowledged support from the fellowship that he holds.

Support for higher education in Ukraine is essential in wartime and critical for the recovery and rebuilding of Ukraine. Research that the Virtual Scholars and their Faculty Hosts are conducting will be instrumental in rebuilding better and more sustainably and also giving us deeper insights on topics ranging from agricultural supply chains and Ukrainian exports, various trade policies, the impacts of war on science in Ukraine, financial budgeting during wartime, advances in game theory, and even how to teach better with Excel!

And there will be more news soon on 5 Virtual Scholars placed with Faculty Hosts at the School of Behavioral and Social Sciences at UMass Amherst, another Virtual Scholar for the Isenberg School, and one for the Math/Stats Department at UMass Amherst! This partnership program is providing support and strengthening networks of scientific collaborations across continents in wartime. I am so proud of my home university - the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This partnership is deeply meaningful to me since my first language is Ukrainian and, since the major invasion of Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022, I was elected Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of KSE.