The Spring Supernetwork Newsletter Is Published!

I am delighted to share that the 2025 Spring Edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, the newsletter of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks that I founded in 2001 and continue to serve as the Director of, has now been published.

It was an extraordinary spring semester with many activities and news items to report.

It is wonderful to see that our research is making impact and that we continue to be sought by the media for our expertise on supply chains and various policies, including tariffs. This summer will be busy with conferences and also with work on international trade as well as food security.

The Spring 2025 newsletter, as well as all other earlier newsletters, can be accessed here: https://supernet.isenberg.umass.edu/newsletters/sentinel.html

Thank you for the support!

Had a Great Time Speaking at the Chancellor's Donor Appreciation Breakfast at UMass Amherst

Yesterday, I had the great honor of being the invited faculty speaker at the Chancellor's Donor Appreciation Breakfast at UMass Amherst.  This weekend was Homecoming Weekend, so that added to the festive atmosphere. Plus, this was the first time since the pandemic was declared that I was speaking to an audience (not including my class)  in person. There were about 300 in attendance and the event took place in the beautifully renovated Student Union. 

The program of the event is below.

It was wonderful to be seated with Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and student speaker Shelby Casimir plus a distinguished PhD alum, Dr. Sherwood, and his wife. My husband accompanied me.

The title of my presentation was: From Supernetworks to Supply Chains in the Pandemic.

The slide deck of my presentation can be downloaded here.

In my presentation, I spoke about amazing students and alums and also the inspiration for the Supernetworks book, and the establishment of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks 20 years ago.  I acknowledged Jack Smith Jr., who endowed the first chaired professorship that I held at the Isenberg School of Management, and also the Isenberg family. I was appointed the Eugene M. Isenberg Chair in Integrative Studies on April 14, 2021, a tremendous honor. Given the number of individuals that came up to me after the program, I believe that the audience enjoyed my presentation. I had hoped to inspire and to share my gratitude for the support!  And, of course, speaking about supply chains and our research on them in the pandemic is a passion of mine from the inclusion of labor to be able to quantify impacts of associated disruptions to our work on blood supply chains and influencing policy.  I also spoke about how much I have enjoyed writing OpEds in the pandemic to inform the public and decision-makers and how speaking to the media, whether for print, TV or radio has also enriched public discourse and outreach. 

Shelby Casimir and I enjoyed being photographed with the Chancellor (photo above). Shelby gave a very moving speech about the challenges of being a student in the pandemic and how she overcame the challenges. The Chancellor, as a super cheerleader of the university, spoke of the many accomplishments as well as major recent donations received.

It was wonderful to be entertained not only by a trio at the beginning of the breakfast and by a contingent of the famous UMass Marching Band towards the end.

It was extra special to see my Isenberg School colleagues, Vice Chancellor Nef Walker and Finance Professor Mila Sherman.

I acknowledged the leadership of the Isenberg School, including Deans Tom O'Brien, Mark Fuller, and, now, Anne Massey.

It was a truly memorable event enjoyed tremendously be all! The resilience of the faculty, administrators, staff, and especially students at UMass Amherst in the pandemic has been remarkable. We all gain from the great strength of the community at this outstanding research university.

Congratulations and Kudos to the Supernetwork Team at the Isenberg School of Management for a Great 2019 Year!

Every year, at this time, as the Center Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I prepare a Congratulations and Kudos piece to the Supernetwork Team. 2019 was another extraordinary year for the Supernetwork Team, one in which we continued to make global impact through fundamental network research with a wide range of applications and activities! It is an honor to highlight some of the accomplishments and achievements of the Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetwork in the past year.

The year began with a marvelous event. I had the great honor and pleasure of speaking at the extraordinary 2019 Congreso Futuro, which took place in Chile from January 14-20. I was invited to speak at this truly unique Congress last April via a formal letter from Senator (Senador) Guido Girardi Lavín, President, Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission, who was writing on behalf of the Chilean Congress, the Government of the Republic of Chile, and the Chilean Academy of Sciences. This year's Congress was the eight annual one and the Congress has become the most important free and open-access scientific forum in Latin America. The Futuro Congreso is unique in the region for providing Nobel laureates, scientists, researchers, artists, opinion leaders and citizens alike the opportunity to experience some of the world’s most cutting-edge research, participate in the understanding of emerging trends and actively engage in the innovation of ideas and debates that directly influence the globe. I had the pleasure of speaking in both Santiago and Valparaiso, and we were even hosted by the President of Chile for a dinner at the palace in Santiago.

On April 5, 2019, we marked an extraordinary milestone - the 50th anniversary of the PhD Program at the Isenberg School of Management, with alums, family members, present doctoral students, faculty, and guests convening for a special celebration. Center Associate Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business was one of the two keynoters at the banquet and Center Associates Professors Jose M. Cruz of UConn and Patrick Qiang of Penn State, and Dr. Padma Ramanujam of SAS, were panelists on the Management Science PhD panel that I had the pleasure of organizing. Center Associates: Professors Min Yu of the University of Portland, June Dong of SUNY Oswego, Michelle Li of Babson College, and Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College came back for this big event. Also, Doctoral Student Center Associates: Deniz Besik, Pritha Dutta, and Mojtaba Salarpour very much enjoyed this truly celebratory event. Pritha Dutta successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, graduated in May from UMass Amherst, and is now an Assistant Professor at Pace University in NYC.

The POMS conference took place in Washington DC, May 2-6, 2019. Doctoral Student Center Associate Deniz Besik presented some of her latest work, joint with Center Associate Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford and me, on tariff rate quotas and agricultural products. Pritha Dutta presented on research, also conducted with me, on competition for blood donations, a paper, which was recently published in the journal Omega. Dr. Dutta also had a paper published in Operations Research for Health Care in 2020. Center Associates had numerous journal article publications and it is important to recognize that Professor Dmytro Matsypura received the INFORMS ENRE (energy, natural resources and the environment) Best Publication Award in Environment and Sustainability for his paper on wildfires, Wildfire Fuel Management: Network-based Models and Optimization of Prescribed Burning, co-authored with Professor Oleg Prokopyev of the University of Pittsburgh, and Dr. Matsypura's student, Aizat Zahar, and published in the European Journal of Operational Research in 2018. Dr. Matsypura presented the paper and received the award certificate at the INFORMS conference in Seattle in October 2019.

I had the pleasure of being elected a Fellow of the Network Science Society. The award ceremony took place at a banquet during the International Conference on Network Science in Burlington, Vermont, May 29-31, 2019. The citation on my Fellow plaque reads: For sustained contributions to network science, including the formulation, analysis, and computation of solutions to engineered network systems, from congested urban transportation to supply chains, under varied decision-making behaviors.

Center Associate Professor Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy served as a Member of the Program Committee of EURO 2019 in Dublin, Ireland, which took place June 23-26, 2019. Several Center Associates, in addition to Professor Patrizia Daniele; notably, Professor Sara Saberi of WPI and Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney in Australia, spoke at this conference. I had the honor of giving a tutorial on: Game Theory and Variational Inequalities: From Transportation and Supply Chains to Financial Networks and the Internet and was a panelist on two panels: Women in OR and Making an Impact. It was a pleasure to present a paper on global trade and tariffs and quotas co-authored with Doctoral Student Center Associate Deniz Besik and Center Associate Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford.

I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker at the CIIO 2019 logistics conference and also delivering a guest lecture. Both of these took place at the Naval Academy located on an island in Cartagena, Colombia. I also had the great honor of being a keynote speaker at the VIII Congreso de la Sociedad Mexicana de Investigacion de Operaciones (CSMIO 2019), ITAM Santa Teresa, Mexico, October 16-18, 2019.

The INFORMS Annual Conference had great representation by the Center Associates with Professors Dmytro Matsypura, Jose Cruz, Sara Saberi, Ke Ke of Central Washington University, Michelle Li, Shivani Shukla of the University of San Francisco, and Min Yu taking part, as well as Doctoral Student Center Associates Deniz Besik and Mojtaba Salarpour. Deniz Besik had the honor of being accepted and taking part in 3 Doctoral Colloquia this year: at POMS in Washington DC, INFORMS, and DSI in New Orleans. Also, congrats to Dr. Cruz on being appointed an Associate Dean of Graduate Programs at the School of Business at UConn!

It was also a fabulous year for the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which I have had the pleasure of serving as the Faculty Advisor of for an incredible 15 years. We hosted outstanding speakers from industry and academia in our Speaker Series. The speakers spoke on topics from smart cities to disaster management in the Arctic, and the optimization of refugee settlement placements, as well as energy, among other topics. On November 13, 2019, we were delighted that Center Associate Dr. Stavros Siokos, traveled from London, England, and spoke in the series. Dr. Siokos is Managing Partner of Astarte Capital Partners LLP, a private equity asset management firm based in London. His presentation title was:  “Investing in Private Markets: Social and Environmental Benefits.”

And, on December 5, 2019, I had the distinct honor of presenting to the Isenberg School's Senior Leadership Team on 18 (plus) years of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks and its activities. The presentation slides can be downloaded here.

Thanks for the support! We wish everyone a Fabulous New 2020 Year!

Below are links to examples of some of our recent publications.

Multitiered Blood Supply Chain Network Competition: Linking Blood Service Organizations, Hospitals, and Payers
Pritha Dutta and Anna Nagurney, Operations Research for Health Care, 23: (2019), 100230.

In Memoriam: Martin Beckmann (1924-2017)
David Boyce and Anna Nagurney, Transportation Science.

Quantifying Supply Chain Network Synergy for Humanitarian Organizations
Anna Nagurney and Qiang Qiang, to appear in IBM Journal of Research and Development.

Strict Quotas or Tariffs? Implications for Product Quality and Consumer Welfare in Differentiated Product Supply Chains
Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and Dong Li, Transportation Research E 29: (2019), pp 136-161.

Global Supply Chain Networks and Tariff Rate Quotas: Equilibrium Analysis with Application to Agricultural Products
Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and Ladimer S. Nagurney, Journal of Global Optimization 75: (2019) pp 439–460.

Competition for Blood Donations
Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, Omega 212: (2019), pp 103-114.

An Integrated Financial and Logistical Game Theory Model for Humanitarian Organizations with Purchasing Costs, Multiple Freight Service Providers, and Budget, Capacity, and Demand Constraints
Anna Nagurney, Mojtaba Salarpour, and Patrizia Daniele, International Journal of Production Economics 212: (2019), pp 212-226.

Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework
Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, Annals of Operations Research 275(2): (2019), pp 551-586.

Tariffs and Quotas in World Trade: A Unified Variational Inequality Framework
Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and June Dong, European Journal of Operational Research 275(1): (2019), pp 347-360.

How to Increase the Impact of Disaster Relief: A Study of Transportation Rates, Framework Agreements and Product Distribution
Timo Gossler, Tina Wakolbinger, Anna Nagurney, and Patrizia Daniele, European Journal of Operational Research 274(1): (2019), pp 126-141.

Lots of Good News from the Supernetwork Center at the Isenberg School of Management

In 2001, the Virtual Center for Supernetworks was established at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and I have continued to serve as its Founding Director.

Each year we produce three newsletters to keep our stakeholders and constituents informed of activities at the Center and also the successes of the Supernetwork Center Associates, which include faculty, practitioners, as well as doctoral students.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Winter 2019 edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, the newsletter of the Supernetwork Center is now available and online. I am so honored to serve as the Center's Director and continue to marvel as to how much this remarkable team accomplishes through mutual support in all of its endeavors from research to outreach and various other professional activities.

 

 All newsletters can be downloaded and viewed from here.

Thank you for the support!

A Transformative Congreso Futuro in Chile with Thanks to the Organizers, Speakers and Volunteers

Last night I returned from the extraordinary 2019 Congreso Futuro, which took place in Chile from January 14-20. I had been invited to speak at this truly unique Congress last April via a formal letter  from Senator (Senador) Guido Girardi Lavín, President, Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission, who was writing on behalf of the Chilean Congress, the Government of the Republic of Chile and the Chilean Academy of Sciences. This year's Congress was the eight annual one and the Congress has become the most important free and open-access scientific forum in Latin America. According to the invitation: It is unique in the region for providing Nobel laureates, scientists, researchers, artists, opinion leaders and citizens alike the opportunity to experience some of the world’s most cutting-edge research, participate in the understanding of emerging trends and actively engage in the innovation of ideas and debates that directly influence the globe. 

Dr. Girardi is a true visionary and leader and all those who had the fabulous experience of taking part in the Congreso Futuro are indebted to him for the incredible intellectual exchanges, social events, as well as cultural ones. New friendships and partnerships have been made across disciplines and across the globe because of this Congreso Futuro!

The Congreso Futuro was a transformative event and experience with about 100 presenters from around the globe. The attention to detail was incredible, with an individual itinerary provided for each speaker plus each one of us was assigned a student volunteer.  The Congress consists of TED-like talks as well as panels and I thoroughly enjoyed sessions on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to climate change to food insecurity. 

The venue in Santiago was the former National Congress, which is a stunning building surrounded by a garden.

In addition to snacks and lunches provided to the speakers there was even a magnificent banquet last Wednesday evening hosted by the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera at the presidential palace in Santiago. The conversations there that continued throughout the Congress I will treasure.

There was a full day (last Saturday) on the Nobel Prize Dialogue on The Future of Learning in  which 4 Nobel laureates took part and representatives from the Nobel Foundation and panelists as well. There was a lovely lunch provided and closing remarks, and since I have had Visiting Professorships at both KTH in Stockholm and at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden it was delightful to meet the delegation from Sweden.

I had the pleasure of speaking in Santiago on January 15 and then at one of the regional venues in Valparaiso on January 17. At the former, I was part of a session on Making Sense of Complexity Through Simplicity that included Daniel Hurtado of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile,  Robert Sutor of IBM (who was born in Yonkers, where I obtained much of my schooling), and Brian Farrell of Harvard University. My talk in Santiago was on The Era of Supernetworks and it was livestreamed.

My presentation in Valparaiso was on Women in Science: A Personal Journey and the video can be accessed here (with Spanish translation). I expect that, as in previous years, all the talks in Santiago will be posted soon. Joining me in Valparaiso at the National Congress were the Nobel laureate Michael Kosterlitz, professor at my alma mater Brown University, Amber Case, and Floyd Romesberg and we enjoyed travel there and back with our great driver, Juan Carlos, and even had a tour of Valparaiso, which is a UNESCO site. Each talk was followed by a very stimulating panel and discussions.

At our event, 8 ambassadors of Latin American countries came to our talks and panels that followed and even joined us for lunch!

We were hosted in Valparaiso by Senador Chahuan and we thank him for the exceptional hospitality! 

I was thrilled when a group of girls showed up for my presentation in Valparaiso who are part of an award-winning national robotics team and also was absolutely delighted when Dean Juan Kuznar even mentioned the Stem Gems book, edited by Stephanie Espy,  in which I am featured, along with 43 other role models for young girls.

To the wonderful speakers, who are true trailblazers that I met and I will never forget; to the superb student volunteers and staff, and to the extraordinary organizers, a thank you from the bottom of my heart! You set new standards for intellectual exchanges and experiences! Also, many thanks to the wonderful journalists, including Macarena Pizarro of CNN Chile, who took the time to interview me.

Goodbye, beautiful Chile, and the fabulous Congreso Futuro! Till we meet again!

And, to add to the Chilean experience, last Saturday night at about 10:30PM as I was drifting off to sleep because of an early departure back to North America the next morning, my bed in the hotel room started shaking, and when I checked the Chilean news there had, indeed, been an earthquake in Coquimbo, registered at 6.7.

New Year - New Country - Thanks to the Congreso Futuro in Chile

On the first day of the New 2019 Year I thought it appropriate to write about what I am very excited about - and that is my forthcoming trip to a country I have never been to before - Chile!

I have a connection to that country since for two years my room-mate at Brown University during my undergraduate days was a Chilean, Teresa Davila, who was also an Applied Math major and lover of Operations Research. This former ballerina was a member of the Brown women's crew (rowing) team while I ran track and cross country and also double majored.

The invitation to speak in Chile came last April with an email message and an official letter on behalf of Senator Girardi, President of the Senate's Future Challenges, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission in Chile, to participate as a Guest Speaker in the upcoming VIII Futures Congress (Congreso Futuro in Spanish), "a global flagship knowledge engagement event set to take place between the 14th-20th January 2019". Since the establishment of  the Futures Congress in 2011, it has become a major forum in Latin America for addressing the many challenges that humanity is faced with and brings together scientists and humanists to discuss how we can achieve a better future. Our itineraries are planned with great attention to detail with lunches and dinners organized as well as excursions for those interested.

I am so honored and thankful to be representing the Isenberg School of Management and the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the Futures Congress!

The Futures Congress takes place in Santiago, Chile, along with other locations in Chile and the venues are magnificent, as evidenced from past congresses.

I will have the pleasure of speaking in the thematic session: Shaping Our Lives, Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World with renowned scientists that I am very excited about meeting: Dr. Daniel Hurtado of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Dr. Geoffrey West of Stanford University, and Dr. Robert Sutor of IBM!  I will give the talk: The Era of Supernetworks.

Subsequently, I will speak in Valparaiso at a full day event and the title of my talk there, which will be followed by a panel discussion, is: Women in Science: A Personal Journey. This event will take place in the Salón de Honor Congreso Nacional. I have thoroughly enjoyed preparing my talks and am in the final stages of polishing them.

Also speaking at the Futures Congress is the Nobel laureate in physics Dr. Michael Kosterlitz, who had an office across the hall from my office in Barus and Holley when I was a PhD student at Brown University! And, as for other serendipitous connections, Dr. Susan Fiske of Princeton University will also be speaking at the Futures Congress. She was formerly a faculty member at UMass Amherst and we have mutual close friends. I am sure that I will come across other speakers with which there are surprising and delightful connections!

It is truly remarkable how wonderful and linked the scientific community is even across disciplines - last year, Dr. Alyssa Goodman of Harvard University was a speaker at the Congreso Futuro. She co-directs the science program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard where I have been a Science Fellow and have also spent most of my past two summers!

I have been brushing up on my Spanish, even during the holiday festivities during this past week and will be also speaking with my Isenberg School of Management Marketing colleague, Dr. Francisco Villarroel  Ordenes, who is now in Chile (but, sadly our times there will not overlap).

Many thanks to the organizers of the Congreso Futuro for inviting me. I am very much looking forward to what will be an extraordinary intellectual, social as well as cultural experience!

Congratulations and Kudos to the Supernetwork Team at the Isenberg School of Management for a Great 2018 Year!

Every year, at this time, as the Center Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I prepare a Congratulations and Kudos piece on the Supernetwork Team. 2018 was another exceptional year for the Supernetwork Team, one in which we continued to make a global impact through fundamental network research with a wide range of applications and activities! It is an honor to highlight some of the accomplishments and achievements of the Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetwork in the past year. The book, Dynamics of Disasters: Algorithmic Approaches and Applications, which I co-edited with Professor Ilias S. Kotsireas of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada and Professor Panos M. Pardalos of the University of Florida, was published by Springer. The collection of refereed chapters includes several papers presented at the Dynamics of Disaster conference in the summer of 2017 in Kalamata, Greece, by Center Associates, including: Advances in Disaster Communications: Broadband Systems for First Responders by Dr. Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, and A Variational Equilibrium Network Framework for Humanitarian Organizations in Disaster Relief: Effective Product Delivery Under Competition for Financial Funds, which I co-authored with  Dr. Patrizia Daniele of the University of Catania in Italy, Emilio Alvarez Flores of Cisco, and Professor Daniele's former doctoral student, Valeria Caruso. Also, while at the conference, a wonderful collaboration was initiated with Professor Tina Wakolbinger of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and her doctoral student Timo Gossler, which resulted in the paper,  How to Increase the Impact of Disaster Relief: A Study of Transportation Rates, Framework Agreements and Product Distribution, published open access in the European Journal of Operational Research, and co-authored with Professor Patrizia Daniele and me. A big congratulations to Professor Tina Wakolbinger, who was selected as one of two keynote speakers for the 50th Anniversary Celebration  of the PhD Program of the Isenberg School of Management, which will take place on April 5, 2019. The other keynote speaker is Dr. Dennis Hanno, the President of Wheaton College in Massachusetts. I have organized a panel of our Management Science PhD alums, which will include Center Associate Professor Patrick Qiang of Penn State University Great Valley and Center Associate Dr. Padma Ramanujam of SAS! Also, a delightful collaboration of four females, resulted in the paper, Cybersecurity Investments with Nonlinear Budget Constraints and Conservation Laws: Variational Equilibrium, Marginal Expected Utilities, and Lagrange Multipliers, Gabriella Colajanni (Professor Daniele's doctoral student), Patrizia Daniele, Professor Sofia Giuffre, and me, published in the International Transactions in Operational Research in 2018! Special thanks to Professor Patrizia Daniele for co-organizing an incredible conference: Variational Inequalities, Nash Equilibrium Problems and Applications, March 8-9, 2018, in Reggio Calabria, Italy, which took place in a castle! I had a marvelous time being a keynote speaker and taking part in this exceptional scientific conference. Center Associates had numerous speaking engagements at conferences globally as well as many invited seminar talks. Professors Daniele, Wakolbinger, and Jose Cruz presented at the 29th European Conference On Operational Research, EURO2018, Valencia, Spain, July 8-11, 2018 and I had the pleasure, as did Doctoral Student Center Associate Pritha Dutta, to  present at the CORS Conference in Halifax, Canada! And, speaking of doctoral students, congratulations also to Deniz Besik, on the acceptance of her paper, Tariffs and Quotas in World Trade: A Unified Variational Inequality Framework, in the European Journal of Operational Research, which was co-authored with Professor June Dong of SUNY Oswego and me. This work began last summer when I was back at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University as a Summer Fellow and it was tremendous to have Professors June Dong, Amir M. Masoumi of Manhattan College, and Michelle Li  visit, as well as my doctoral students Pritha Dutta and Deniz Besik. A big congratulations also to Deniz, who served as last year's President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and, this past November, the chapter was recognized with its 12th consecutive award from INFORMS at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix for its activities. Very active officers include Doctoral Student Center Associates Pritha Dutta and Mojtaba Salarpour. Congratulations also to Pritha on the acceptance of two papers: Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework, in press in the Annals of Operations Research, and Competition for Blood Donations, in press in Omega. Pritha successfully defended her doctoral dissertation proposal this past semester and also took part in the INFORMS Future Academicians Doctoral Colloquium just prior to the INFORMS Conference in Phoenix in November. Deniz also had a co-authored paper published in Chaos, which was an Editor's Pick. Kudos to Center Associate Dr. Michelle Li on her move to Babson College as an Assistant Professor. Babson is considered the top entrepreneurial college in the world! Also, congratulations to her on the publication of the paper, The Sustainable Supply Chain Network Competition with Environmental Tax Policies, co-authored with Center Associates Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland and Jose Cruz of the University of Connecticut! In addition, congrats on the publication of our co-authored paper, Consumer Learning of Product Quality with Time Delay: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Models with Differentiated Products, also with Dr. Yu, in Omega. Kudos to Center Associate Dr. Sara Saberi of the Foisie School of Business at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts, who is lead author of the paper, A Competitive Multiperiod Supply Chain Network Model with Freight Carriers and Green Technology Investment Option, with Center Associate Dr. Jose M. Cruz of the University of Connecticut, her colleague, Dr. Joe Sarkis, and me, which was published in the European Journal of Operational Research. Congratulations also to Dr. Saberi on the publication of her paper, Sustainable, Multiperiod Supply Chain Network Model with Freight Carrier Through Reduction in Pollution Stock in Transportation Research E! Sara is now conducting research with support from several grants and is an elected Officer of WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences). Congratulations to Center Associate Dr. Shivani Shukla, of the University of San Francisco, who, along with Dr. Sara Saberi and Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and me, had the paper, A Game Theory Model for Freight Service Provision Security Investments for High-Value Cargo, published in the Economics of Transportation. The INFORMS Phoenix conference, November 4-7, 2018 served as a terrific venue for many Center Associates to reconvene, with participants and speakers including Center Associates: Professor Patrick Qiang of Pennsylvania State University Great Valley,  Professor Amir H. Masoumi of Manhattan College, Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland, Professor Dmytro Matsypura of the University of Sydney in Australia, Professor Jose M. Cruz of the University of Connecticut, Professor Dong Li of Babson, Professor Sara Saberi, and Professor Shivani Shukla as well as Deniz Besik and Pritha Dutta. At the conference I was deeply honored in being selected and delivering the Omega Rho Distinguished Lecture: Networks to Save the World: OR in Action. Special thanks also to Lancaster University in England, where I not only gave a course last March, but also was the plenary speaker in September for the 60th anniversary conference: OR60, and at the Early Career Researcher Workshop. The OR Society kindly made a videotape of my plenary talk and it is now posted on youtube. Below are links to examples of some of our recent publications:   Tariffs and Quotas in World Trade: A Unified Variational Inequality Framework Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and June Dong, in press in the European Journal of Operational Research. A Game Theory Model for Freight Service Provision Security Investments for High-Value Cargo Anna Nagurney, Shivani Shukla, Ladimer S. Nagurney, and Sara Saberi, Economics of Transportation 16: (2018), pp 21-28. Consumer Learning of Product Quality with Time Delay: Insights from Spatial Price Equilibrium Models with Differentiated Products Dong "Michelle" Li, Anna Nagurney, and Min Yu, Omega 18: (2018), pp 150-168.

Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, to appear in the Annals of Operations Research. Competition for Blood Donations Anna Nagurney and Pritha Dutta, in press in Omega.  Dynamics of Quality as a Strategic Variable in Complex Food Supply Chain Network Competition: The Case of Fresh Produce Anna Nagurney, Deniz Besik, and Min Yu, Chaos 28: (2018), 043124.

Thanks for the support! We wish everyone a Fabulous New 2019 Year!

My Former PhD Students Continue to Amaze Me!

One of the greatest gifts of being a professor is seeing one's students graduate and continue to thrive in their chosen careers. In the case of PhD students in Operations Research/Management Science, some go on to assume academic appointments and continue to educate generations of their own students, whereas others may elect to make an impact in industry and become practitioners and/or entrepreneurs.
 

As the Founding Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, which I established in 2001 at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, I continue to be amazed by the accomplishments of my former PhD students (I have chaired the doctoral dissertations of 20 students). Many have continued their association with the Center as Center Associates, an affiliation that provides a vigorous professional and support mechanism. Also, as the Director of the Center, I share three newsletters that are published per year, documenting the activities and accomplishments.

I am pleased to announce that the Summer 2018 edition of the newsletter, The Supernetwork Sentinel, is now available online. It reflects what I believe are some truly awesome accomplishments, which merit further highlighting.
 

For example, my former UMass Amherst doctoral student, Dr. Stavros Siokos, with whom I co-authored the Financial Networks book, has had an amazing career in finance.
 

Stavros is now the Managing Partner of the London-based Astarte Capital Partners, which he co-founded in 2015.  He recently launched a new program for investing in the education of underprivileged youth, an initiative, which demonstrates generosity and heart and also corporate social responsibility. I was very touched to read the interview with Stavros on his initiative, which appeared in Institutional Investing in Infrastructure. In the interview, he states: As far as I am aware, we are the first private equity firm to be committed toward allocating part of our profitability for such an initiative. We are also looking to bring this effort to a wider audience of asset managers so that the initiative has a much larger impact.


Another former doctoral student of mine, Professor Zugang "Leo" Liu, who is a tenured Associate Professor at Penn State Hazleton, is behind an initiative to start a new degree in project management and supply chain management which will provide a much needed educated and highly skilled workforce. Penn State issued this press release describing the new bachelor's degree.

Professor Patrick Qiang, with whom I co-authored the Fragile Networks book, and his dissertation received the Charles Wootan Award, also a tenured faculty member at a Penn State campus, was part of a delegation to China that visited 5 universities to enhance relationships and partnerships. The press release with details can be read here.

What truly impresses me about my former PhD students is their ability to lead and to conduct research that crosses boundaries and that makes a positive impact. Other exemplars of my former Isenberg School PhD students include: Professor Tina Wakolbinger, who became a Full Professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business only 4 years after receiving her PhD, and is heading a Supply Chain Research Institute and is responsible for several programs. She is heavily involved in humanitarian logistics research, and is supervising several doctoral students (so the academic family tree is flourishing). And, closer to home, Professor Jose M. Cruz, who received 5 degrees from UMass Amherst, including an MBA, and is a tenured Associate Professor at the School of Business at the University of Connecticut, has received multiple awards, from being named an Ackerman Scholar twice, to multiple teaching awards at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and even a service award. His research focuses on supply chains and environmental issues as well as corporate social responsibility. He is the Director of the very successful Master of Science Program in Business Analytics and Project Management! You can read more about this highly ranked program here.

The Good News Keeps on Coming!

The life of an academic is never dull and what I especially enjoy is the good news that arrives!

Last night I heard from my 16th PhD student, Dr. Min Yu, who received her PhD from UMass Amherst in 2012, with a concentration in Management Science, that she had been awarded promotion to Associate Professor and tenure at the Pamplin School of Business at the University of Portland in beautiful Oregon. This is a big milestone and we are all thrilled for her! Dr. Yu was not only my PhD student (I have chaired 20 PhD dissertations to completion) but we continue to collaborate on a variety of supply chain network problems from food to sustainability. And just this past week, with a present doctoral student of mine, Deniz Besik, we completed a paper, "Dynamics of Quality as a Strategic Variable in Complex Food Supply Chain Network Competition: The Case of Fresh Produce," and submitted it to a special issue of a journal (and we met the deadline). This paper we will be presenting at the NEDSI conference in Providence, Rhode Island (I have a soft spot for this city since I have 4 degrees from Brown University) and it is beautiful there in April. Another doctoral student of mine, Pritha Dutta, will also present at this conference and the title of that paper is: "Supply Chain Network Competition Among Blood Service Organizations: A Generalized Nash Equilibrium Framework."

Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed for a radio segment by Karen Brown: 'Critical' Blood Shortage Comes Down To Weather, Flu And Supply Chain, which aired on NEPR and several other state public radio stations. It is gratifying when research that one does can impact practice.

We received a contract from Springer to edit the volume: Dynamics of Disasters: Algorithmic Approaches and Applications, which is shaping up nicely with multiple papers now in the revised, accepted, or being reviewed stages. I am co-editing this volume (as I did the one published in 2016) with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos and my co-authors and I have revised our paper,  A Variational Equilibrium Network Framework for Humanitarian Organizations in Disaster Relief: Effective Product Delivery Under Competition for Financial Funds, Anna Nagurney, Patrizia Daniele, Emilio Alvarez Flores, Valeria Caruso, and it is now accepted.

This week we published the 2018 Winter edition of The Supernetwork Sentinel, which is the newsletter of the Supernetwork Center at the Isenberg School that I founded in 2001 and continue to direct. This newsletter, as well as all previous ones, can be downloaded here.

 
It is amazing, if I may say so, what the Supernetwork Team accomplished in the past few months and all the wonderful activities and events on the horizon!

This week we also heard that Dr. Burcu Balcik, renowned in humanitarian logistics, will be coming to speak in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series on March 30, and we are thrilled and delighted. Our first speaker will be Professor Hari Balasubramanian, who will speak on February 9, followed by Professor Jim Orlin of MIT on February 23, Dr. Les Servi on March 23, and Dr. Davit Khachatryan on April 20! On several of the "remaining" Fridays I will be giving talks at WPI, in Italy, Switzerland, and Wisconsin.

Plus, I am teaching my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this semester and I am also hosting multiple Guest Speakers as Professor for a Day! Today, we had Mr. Jeff Hescock, who is the UMass Interim Executive Director of Environmental Health & Safety plus the Director of Emergency Management and Business Continuity, speak and he was amazing! Below is a photo taken after his lecture.

In this class will have also other guest speakers (the response to my invitations has been tremendous and I am so grateful) who have worked for (or are presently employed by) MEMA, BayStateHealth, Doctors without Borders, and UMass Amherst, and additional speakers on Disaster Communications and other topics.
 
And, this week, I was honored to again assume the position of being the PhD Coordinator for Management Science at the Isenberg School, a position that I held for over a decade. I thank my colleague, Professor Ahmed Ghoniem, for his excellent service in his capacity as the Coordinator for the past few years. Doctoral students are essential to the vibrancy and intellectual energy and productivity of a great research university such as UMass Amherst!

We have also been very busy working on a big proposal to the National Science Foundation on a truly exciting, multidisciplinary project and it is super to also be part of this team.