Photos from the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Party

It was a great year for the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter with wonderful seminar talks,  the visit of Dr. Radhika Kulkari, VP of R&D of SAS, who is an INFORMS Fellow, and our tour of ISO New England, which monitors electric power reliability for all of New England.

Another highlight this year was celebrating the 10th anniversary of the chapter.


As the Faculty Advisor to this chapter, I always find it so rewarding to see the students flourish as leaders and members and this year I want to especially thank all the Chapter Officers: Michael Prokle (President), Amirhossein Alamdar Yazdi (Vic President), Sara Saberi (Treasurer),  Heng Chen and Kayla Monahan (Secretaries), Tulay Varol (Event Coordinator), Pritha Dutta (Communications Director), and Ekin Koker (Webmaster).


Yesterday afternoon we celebrated the end of the semester with a tradition, and we can certainly call it a tradition, since the chapter is now almost 11 years old, and we "end" each semester with a party with international cuisine and great conversations! The students and faculty come from the Isenberg School of Management and also the College of Engineering.

This year we even had two of our Operations and Information Management undergrad alums come back - Jan Sudra, who works for United Technologies (and just completed his MBA at UConn) and Zheng "WeiWei"  Ding, who works and lives in Manhattan, and graduated last year from the Isenberg School with a degree in Operations and Information Management. She took a Megabus yesterday yesterday from NYC.

Below I have posted some photos from our party yesterday. Thanks to all those who support our students throughout he year. This has been a great slate of officers to work with and it has been so much fun. Amazing what our students accomplish both in the classroom and beyond!

I was very busy talking so did not take as many photos as usual. I wish everyone best of luck with final exams and projects!

A Terrific UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter End of the Semester Party at the Isenberg School

It seems to be a truism that the busiest people also get the most done!

This past Friday was the last day of classes at UMass Amherst for the Fall 2014 semester with final exams beginning this week.

There are final exams to study for and papers to  complete so students are especially busy now as are the faculty.

But great memories are made of special experiences and it has been the tradition of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter to always host an end of the semester party.

This we did (I am the Faculty Advisor of the chapter) on Friday, after also hosting Professor Tilman Wolf in our Speaker Series, who gave a brilliant talk: An Economy Plane for the Internet : Paying for Innovative Network Services that I blogged about.

Clearly, there were some logistical challenges with the talk and discussions over closer to 3:30PM and with the party beginning in the same room at the Isenberg School of Management at 4:30PM.  But, with students taking courses in Network Optimization, Logistics & Transportation,  and  Supply Chains, to start, they were definitely up to the challenge! Special thanks to Michael Prokle, Chapter President, and Sara Saberi, Chapter Treasurer, for their extraordinary work on both events on Friday and to Heng Chen, Chapter Secretary,  for disseminating the news, along with Pritha Dutta, Communications Director! Please visit the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter site for more photos and information. Kudos to our terrific Webmaster, Ekin Koker!


Our parties are not to be missed - the cuisine is always international. This time in addition to the varenyky (pierogies) and kielbasy that I brought, along with cookies that I baked, we had Asian food, Middle Eastern food, veggie salads, and, of course, pizza with different toppings. We also had delicious cakes, fruit salad, and many different juices and drinks.

 

The Chapter Officers did a great job of allocating the tasks, doing the budgeting, picking up the food (and it was a very cold day so we needed to keep the hot food warm for all the guests).

The party began at 4:30 PM and we closed up around 7PM.

The conversations were fabulous and faculty and students from the Isenberg School of Management and the College of Engineering took part with a focus (note the name of the chapter) on those in Operations research and the Management Sciences. It was special to even have several staff members from the Isenberg School attend.

This was a great event in which to catch up, wish everyone good luck for the exams, and a Happy Holiday Season!

Events such as these build communities and I congratulate the hard-working students and chapter officers for doing such a great job.

A Walk Down Memory Lane - Celebrating 10 Years of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter

We are very excited that this Friday, October 3, 2014, we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter.

The students in Operations Research and the Management Sciences prepared the lovely flyer below.

The celebration will take place in the Isenberg School of Management in Room 210 from 4:30-6:30.

It's been such a great honor to have served as this chapter's Faculty Advisor for the past decade and,  this morning, the newly elected President of the student chapter, Michael Prokle, surprised me with a video that was prepared by Ekin Koker, also a newly elected officer - Chapter Webmaster

When I viewed the video below prior to teaching my class this morning I was swept over by nostalgia - the photos in the video over a decade of student activities, numerous guest speakers - you may have fun identifying such luminaries as Dietrich Braess of Braess paradox fame, OR/MS superstars such as Dr. Cynthia Barnhart of MIT, Dr. Ed Kaplan of Yale, and Dr. Les Servi, of MITRE, to name only 3 that we have hosted through the chapter at the Isenberg School.


At the celebration on Friday, there will also be several video testimonials from previous Chapter Officers, some of whom are already tenured Associate Professors, and the first Chapter President, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, who is now a Full Professor.

Enjoy strolling down Memory Lane, as much as I did and thanks for such an amazing decade!!!

Photos from Another GREAT UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Party

It has been the tradition of the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter to host an end of the semester party every semester and we have been doing it since Fall 2003! This is an event that should not be missed and even though this week is final exams week and many of us are extremely busy there is something special about this tradition.

Today is the 12th day of the 12th month and the party was in the Isenberg School of Management Room 112 -- math lovers will appreciate this.

Students divided themselves into 3 groups, each with a driver, to do the logistics of procuring the food (both cold and hot) and today the temps were in the teens plus one student was in a car accident but we are good at disruption management.

I managed to bring Slavic food  - two types of varenyky/pierogies which were warm and kielbasa plus nut rolls and cookies and we feasted on Indian cuisine, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Italian (pizza), and more. There were students from many departments in the Isenberg School as well as from the College of Engineering (Industrial Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering) and even students from Polymer Science and a postdoc from Food Science!

The below photos tell it all -- great food and great cameraderie. (Some had to leave before the group photo was taken, but thanks so much for coming to support the students, including the Isenberg School PhD Director, Professor George Milne).

Congrats to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter for another very special event and thanks for the memories! As the Faculty Advisor I could not be prouder of how these students work together and support one another.

Thanks to everyone for the support of this chapter's activities!

UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Hosts an Alum and a Great Party

Yesterday, was the last day of classes at UMass Amherst and we had the pleasure of hosting one of our distinguished alums, Dr. Jose M. Cruz, who has 5 degrees from UMass Amherst, including an MBA and PhD with  a concentration in Management Science from the Isenberg School. I was his doctoral dissertation committee chair and am very proud of him. He received his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure at the School of Business at the University of Connecticut this past year and has received accolades for his teaching and his research.

 Many of the students who are part of the UMass Amherst INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Student Chapter helped out with the hosting of the talk and with the party afterwards. Our students know how to do logistics-- I was impressed!

He spoke on The Myths and Facts of How to Get a Tenure-Track Job and How to get Tenure and we will be posting his slides soon since this topic is of interest to many PhD students and Assistant Professors. His insights and energy were amazing and we listened mesmerized. The feedback and questions for the audience were also terrific.

Lunch at the University Club, in a building dating to 1728 (but not the food which was exquisite)

His talk started at 2PM and lasted until shortly before 4PM (there was a lot of territory to cover) and at 4:30PM our end of the semester party was scheduled in the same room. As is our tradition, we had international cuisine and it was truly a fabulous way in which to mark the end of another semester. The students handled the logistics of procuring the food, and preparing it in some cases, and then transporting it in a timely manner. The food was so delicious!!! Although I have been engrossed in writing a long research paper I baked cookies and we even brought varenyky (pierogies, for some of you) and kielbasa. We had all earned our appetites.
 The delicious international cuisine at the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Party

It takes a lot of people to build a community and this student chapter with members from the Isenberg School of Management and the College of Engineering I commend not only on its great activities, but on its creativity, organizational skills, and the esprit de corps of its members. Student members are from the US, India, Korea, China, Nigeria, Iran, Turkey, and other countries and they work so well together.
Some photos of the great people who came to our party

 

 

There is hope for the world when I see such great students.

We had fun and Dr. Cruz also enjoyed the party very much!

The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter Party Was Wonderful!

The semester has ended and the exams are beginning soon.

We celebrate the "end of the semester" by hosting a party filled with international cuisine, students, faculty, staff, and great conversation.

Today, we had our UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter party at the Isenberg School and I will let the photos above speak for themselves.

A great time was had by all and I commend the students for doing so much at this busy time of the year!

We also honored our hard-working student chapter officers.