Extraordinary Event in Support of Ukraine Organized by the Kyiv School of Economics at the Harvard Club in NYC

A short while ago, we returned from NYC, where we took part in an event on September 17 at the Harvard Club in support of Ukraine that was organized by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) with assistance provided by Razom for Ukraine and United24. 

The event included a conference in the afternoon on the theme: "The Independence War in Ukraine: Global Implications" followed by a charity dinner with the subtheme of: "The Present and Future of the Country."

The full program, which contains information on the conference sessions, with overarching themes of global security, resilience in war, energy security, as well as food security, can be found on the event page. The conference program was outstanding (it was tough to choose between the parallel sessions) with academics, executives, Ukrainian government ministers, an ambassador, thought leaders, representatives from the World Bank, and even the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine taking part.

Given the research that we have been doing for quite a few years on agricultural supply chains, I was thrilled to hear from the panel on World Food Security, which was moderated by Dr. Oleg Nivievskyi, an agricultural economist, who is Vice President for Economics Education at KSE.

High food prices were emphasized, along with the costs of logistics in Ukraine and the costs of fertilizer and fuel, plus how there is so much uncertainty now. Getting agricultural products out of Ukraine is essential to food security and just having the port of Odesa open (with the recent brokered agreement by the UN with support from Turkey) not enough. The port of Mikolayiv also is sorely needed.  In addition, the need for weapons to defeat Russia was emphasized along with sanctions. The extremely challenged farmers paid $40/ton to ship grain before the war and now the cost has risen to $200/ton.

There were opportunities to network and to chat in the elegant Harvard Club.

I'd like to congratulate the President of KSE, Tymofiy Mylovanov, and the Rector of KSE, Tymofii Brik, for the excellent organization of the conference and charity dinner, and for being incredible masters of ceremony of the event, as well as ambassadors for higher education in Ukraine and for the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine.

Even the Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, came during the cocktail honor and gave a speech. We were delighted to see him with his entourage as he entered and exited the Harvard Club. He even shook the hand of my spouse, Ladimer S. Nagurney, who had accompanied me. Below is a photo taken by Mylovanov of Eric Adams speaking.

I have had a several year association with KSE and serve on its International Academic Board as well as on its Board of Directors. I was in Kyiv most recently in September, 2019, for a board meeting. After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, on February 24, 2022, I was elected a Co-Chair of the KSE Board of Directors, an appointment I am deeply honored by. I continue to be deeply inspired by my colleagues at KSE for their extraordinary work, efforts, and accomplishments in wartime, which are heroic. 

I am also delighted that UMass Amherst signed a partnership with KSE and acknowledge the great efforts on this by our Director of  the International Programs Office and Vice Provost for Global Affairs Kalpen Trivedi. We expect to be announcing the first round of selected Virtual Scholars soon. More info on the partnership. 

The Chair of the International Academic Board, the Nobel laureate in Economics, Roger Myerson, gave a wonderful speech at the charity dinner.

The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman also spoke and noted that borscht is a Ukrainian dish and that Ukrainians are fighting for the freedom of the free world.

The President of Razom for Ukraine, Dora Chomiak, also spoke. Razom for Ukraine has been assisting in humanitarian relief in Ukraine for many years.

The Ukrainian National anthem was beautifully sung by the NYC Ukrainian chorus Dumka! The ambiance for the dinner was stunning and the food was delicious.

There were many additional speakers from the US and Ukraine at the dinner, who provided touching personal accounts and insights. 

It was great that several KSE IAB and BOD members could take part in the event, including Ambassador John Herbst and Yuri Gorodnichenko of UC Berkeley. Given that there were about 300 in attendance, I certainly may have missed someone from KSE! I also acknowledge how much I enjoyed speaking with Svitlana Denysenko from KSE, who has been behind the organization of many Zoom meetings that we have had with KSE colleagues during wartime.

It was heartwarming to take the photos below with KSE Rector Brik and the Director of the KSE Institute - Nataliia Shapoval.

Below are a few photos taken during the auction component of the charity dinner with Mylovanov and Brik featured below.

I especially liked the symbol of #resilience, a rooster, which was being auctioned off. The rooster figurine had survived a bombardment of a big apartment complex. It now stands for the amazing resilience of Ukrainians. Even a piece of the airplane Mriya, which has been shot down, was auctioned off.

I wish that we had had more time to chat with the many incredible individuals at this event, who came to support Ukraine, some of whom continue to be at the front lines. I look forward to a time, before too long, in which we can together mark and celebrate the end of this horrific war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine, without any provocation or reason, with global implications and suffering! As an academic, and as a daughter of refugees from Ukraine, I stand with Ukraine. Thanks to all those who participated in an event, that we will never forget! Kudos and thanks to the organizers. 

The Outstanding Optimization and Decision Science Conference in Beautiful Firenze, Italy

I would like to thank the organizers of the outstanding Optimization and Decision Science Conference that took place August 30-September 2, 2022 in the stunning city of Firenze, Italy.

It was a conference of great scientific value, with wonderful social activities, at the University of Firenze, which brought together researchers from many different countries for face to face exchanges. For many of us, it was the first international face to face conference since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I very much enjoyed all the sessions on variational analysis and equilibrium problems!

I would also like to extend my deepest appreciation to the Conference Co-Chairs: Professors Fabio Schoen and Paola Cappanera, for the warmth and hospitality extended to all of us. The conference website can be found here. Thanks to the Local Organizing Committee and to the Program Committee for their outstanding work!

It was a great honor to give the opening keynote talk at the Museum of Innocents this past Tuesday, followed by a cocktail hour and tour of the museum.  The title of my keynote was: Labor and Supply Chain Networks: It's All About People. The slidedeck can be downloaded here.

Above I am with Drs. Alice Raffaele and Marti Fischetti, two incredibly talented OR researchers and very dynamic leaders of AIROYoung!

The energy and enthusiasm of the conferees was heartwarming to behold. New friendships were made and established relationships further cemented. The sessions were excellent and the University of Firenze a great venue.

It was fabulous that all 5 co-authors of our paper on UAVs, 5G, and Disaster Management showed up! Below are: Yours truly, Daniele Sciacca, Professor Patrizia Daniele, Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney, and Dr. Gabriela Colajanni.

I very much enjoyed listening to the other keynote talks of Professors Bertsimas (virtual presentation), Dick den Hertog, and Paola Scaparra. It was very cool that both the opening and closing keynoters were female!

Below is a photo of the female keynoters.

The social dinner was a banquet at a farm with majestic views of the landscapes in Tuscany. 

It was truly special to see Professor Ivana Ljubic and her postdoc Martina Cerulli at the banquet and to meet colleagues even from the Czech Republic!

I leave you with some views of beautiful Firenze, Italy! 

All the conferees had a fabulous time scientifically and socially.  The great discipline of Operations Research, because of the creativity and dedication of its researchers, educators, and practitioners, is making laudable positive impact globally. Working together we can achieve so much good.

Thanks to the organizers of the great Optimization and Decision Science 2022 conference for bringing many of us together again, in person!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Celebrating My 23rd PhD Student - Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour

Now is the time of the year in academia, when we mark major milestones, such as the completion of degrees by our students. Yesterday, was a very special day, during which we had the Isenberg School PhD robing ceremony of the class of 2022.

It was wonderful to take part in the ceremony and to speak about my 23rd PhD student, now - Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour! It was the first such in-person ceremony in 3 years because of the pandemic.

The program is below and includes the names of the 6 students from the Isenberg School that received the PhD this past year and the names of their dissertations and their PhD advisors. Impressively, 3 of the 6 are from my Operations and Information Management Department. Mojtaba's concentration in our PhD program was Management Science.

It was nice to see my Department Chair, Professor Senay Solak, at the ceremony and also my 24th PhD student - Dana Hassani.

Mojtaba is from Iran and, while at UMass Amherst, he taught several courses, and was President of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter for 2 years, including 1 1/2 years during the pandemic. He was instrumental in organizing several very interesting virtual panels - one of which was with healthcare researchers from Mass General Hospital and another one was on a career panel. Plus, we had the honor of hosting Dr. Mauricio Resende, Principal Research Scientist of Amazon, in the Chapter's Speaker Series that I help the chapter to organize. Under his tenure as President, the Chapter was recognized with the Magna Cum Laude Award from INFORMS!

Mojtaba's PhD dissertation, "Essays on Supply Chain Economic Networks for Disaster Management Inspired by the Covid-19 Pandemic," constructed several highly relevant game theory models with applications, literally, "drawn from the news." His research, while at UMass Amherst, yielded 4 published papers and 1 published book chapter. I am delighted that he will be an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Texas A&M Commerce, starting this Fall. Below, are first pages of his papers.

As I said in my speech about Mojtaba at the ceremony, Mojtaba Salarpour is "standing on the shoulders of giants," since my academic genealogy, by way of my PhD advisor at Brown University, Professor Stella Dafermos, goes back to Maxwell, Newton, and Galileo - so- "no pressure!"

After the ceremony, it was great to enjoy the delicious food provided by UMass Amherst and to see many colleagues, students, and friends!

Congratulations to all the students, Class of 2022, now alums of their alma mater! With best wishes to you on your new journeys with a special congratulations to Dr. Mojtaba Salarpour! I remember fondly the delicious pistachios he brought for me from Iran when he arrived and after he landed in Boston Logan.

Thanking the Fabulous Guest Speakers in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare Class

Now that the Spring 2022 semester has come to a close (except for some grading), I thought it important to publicly thank and recognize the outstanding guest speakers in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class this term.  In this class, we cover many relevant topics in disaster management, as well as applications to current events, and having experts, who are very knowledgeable in terms of practice, speak to my students, provides for a transformative educational experience.

The class met Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Isenberg School of Management at 8:30AM. Amazingly, and this speaks to the interest of the students in the class, there were several students who would arrive before me, shortly after 8:00AM, which I found very inspiring.

On February 17, 2022, we had the honor of having Mr. Vince Mullen, who is a Major in the Massachusetts National Guard, and who is also the VP of Operations at JP Morgan in Boston, as our first guest speaker. He traveled about 2 hours from eastern MA, and appeared in military dress to speak to my students. The topic of his presentation was: "The Military and Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare." He spoke about his experiences responding to the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 and the logistical and other challenges encountered in the relief efforts. He also discussed how his experiences in the army and the National Guard have helped him as an Executive in a financial services firm, including having very logical thinking skills and being able to adapt to dynamic, evolving situations. Major Mullen also shared with us information about his participation in Phases I and III of the National Guard's COVID response operations. Soldiers’ mission included handling medical supplies, swabbing, transportation, and driving school buses. The constraints included: a lack of vaccines at the time, a lack of organization, non-medical training background of soldiers, and addressing the fundamental question: Where is the need? In Massachusetts alone, the Guard's COVID response has included the logistical issues of handling 1000 soldiers, 69 hospitals, 40 nursing homes, 12 ambulances, 13 dialysis centers, 95000 shift hours, 64000 observed patients, 4500 transported EMS, and 74000 delivered meals.

I found it profoundly moving, as did the students, how much Major Mullen cared about helping disaster victims. I am so grateful for his exceptional service for many years!

The second guest speaker was Dr. Denise Sumpf, who is the highest ranking UN official in Armenia. Her guest lecture took place on February 24, 2022, which, you may recall, is the date of the latest invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign country, by Russia. Dr. Sumpf had taken part in a UN Security Council meeting just hours before her guest presentation, in which she spoke virtually to my class from Yerevan, Armenia. She spoke about the situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the many challenges associated with Nagorno-Karabakh. She also discussed the UN cluster approach, which was great, since this reinforced some of the material I had covered in my lectures. Dr. Sumpf also continued to bring up the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And, clearly, our world has, sadly, dramatically changes since February 24, 2022.

I had hosted Dr. Sumpf a while back in our UMass Amherst INFORMS Speaker Series, when she was based in NYC with the United Nations. She contributed a very interesting co-authored chapter, "The Impact of the Syria Crisis on Lebanon," to the first Dynamics of Disasters volume that I co-edited with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos. It was very special to have her speak to my class.

On March 10, 2022, Ms. Lauren Ulrich, the Executive Director, Operations Management & Logistics, American Red Cross, spoke to my class virtually.  She leads the teams necessary to carry out the key functions for major Red Cross relief operations including incident command, operations management, planning, logistics, finance, and external relations. They have the responsibility for the readiness, planning, resourcing, and implementation of scalable response operations to meet the needs of disaster clients for large-scale Red Cross domestic disaster operations, including across all U.S. States, Territories, and Commonwealths. In her amazing career (she had also been a Marine), Ms. Ulrich has taken part in  multitude operations ranging from Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom; to international disaster response operations, including the Haiti Earthquake, Typhoon Haiyan, and Alberta Floods; to domestic disaster response operations, including Hurricane Sandy, Michigan Water Crisis, Hurricane Harvey, and the California Wildfires! Support, according to Ms. Ulrich, must be repeatable and scalable with the disaster response necessitating speed to market and speed to scale. Speed to market means having access to the required assets for help and shelter, and speed to scale means scaling from  a single home to tens of thousands of homes in 72 hours. Holistically, the logistics team’s mission is to have the required assets to get the volunteers on the ground in 2 hours and to hold the ground for 72 hours while quickly scaling up. She also shared with us the challenges associated with disaster response in the COVID pandemic and how she and her boss were very well-prepared in terms of PPEs, since the Red Cross was closely following the spread of the coronavirus globally, already in January 2020. Her lecture was incredibly engaging and informative.

The fourth guest speaker was UMass Amherst's very own Dr. Peter Reinhart! Dr. Reinhart is the founding Director of the Institute for Applied Life Science (IALS) at UMass Amherst and has more than 25 years of R&D management experience in academia (Duke University), biotechnology (Cogent Neuroscience, Proteostasis Therapeutics), and large pharma (Wyeth, Pfizer). He  came to the University of Massachusetts Amherst from the Cambridge MA biotechnology company, Proteostasis Therapeutics (PTI), where he was President and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Reinhart shared with us how the incredibly effective and, frankly, life-saving, in my opinion, COVID-19 Testing Center at UMass was founded from scratch. As of April 2020, when UMass shut down and reverted to online teaching, 750 scientists in the Applied Life Sciences building had to stay at home. That was when he thought that they could use these human resources and talent to form the Testing Center. He made the idea into a “white paper” and handed it to be reviewed by Chancellor Subbaswamy.  After a month, Chancellor permitted Dr. Reinhart to start the project, who came up with a timeline to make it functional in 100 days, from the preliminary processes and operational foundations to the beginning of the testing. This required exceptional logistics, team work, planning, scientific expertise, legal interventions, and even the assistance of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Thousands of students, faculty, and staff and members of our community have benefited from the exceptional convenience and turn around time and accuracy of the UMass Amherst COVID Testing Center. We are all so proud of this truly exceptional achievement in the service of our community during the pandemic and so grateful!

The fifth and final guest speaker was Professor Ladimer S. Nagurney of the University of Hartford, who spoke in person on April 26, 2022. The topic of his guest lecture was: "Disaster Communications." He even brought hardware to demonstrate to the students. The slide deck of his lecture can be downloaded here.

He discussed many interesting topics with some of the highlights being the disruptions to communications after the volcanic eruption in Tonga (and the restoration efforts) and the importance of communications to the war efforts of  Ukraine against the Russian aggressors.

Many thanks to these outstanding guest speakers, who took the time from their very busy schedules to share their important insights and experiences with my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare class!