UMass Amherst Student Chapter Hosting Dr. Michael C. Fu of Maryland

Now is the time of the year when the Fall academic semester is in full swing. In New England, it is a time of beautiful foliage, pumpkins, Fall sports and activities, and also a time of many events.

The Isenberg School has a new homepage, which you may wish to check out,  which also highlights many events and news items -- thanks so much for noting the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter's receipt of the Magna Cum Laude award from INFORMS at our recent Minneapolis conference. 

This coming Friday, the student chapter will be hosting Professor Michael C. Fu of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. This event was scheduled weeks ago, and as may happen at this busy time of the year, there may be conflicts, so apologies.

We are also circulating the announcement in the College of Engineering, since Professor Weibo Gong helped with the organization, and in Computer Science, given the topic.

I saw Professor Fu recently at the INFORMS Fellows Award luncheon in Minneapolis and it was very nice to connect in person before his visit this Friday. The students prepared the nice flier above and it is an honor to be hosting such a distinguished speaker. Professor Fu holds degrees from MIT and a PhD from Harvard. He also was a Program Director at NSF for the Operations Research Program. Besides being a Fellow of INFORMS, he is also a Fellow of the IEEE.

We will be serving refreshments prior to his talk "Stochastic Gradient Estimation: Tutorial Review and Recent Research," in the Isenberg School Room 112 at 1:30 this Friday with Professor Fu's talk taking place there from 2:00-3:00PM.

Please join us, if you can.

Resilience of Operations Researchers and Raytheon

One of the favorite comments that I received at the recent INFORMS Annual Conference in Minneapolis that I wrote about here and here was from Professor Leon Lasdon of the University of Texas Austin. As he and I were exiting the room where the 2013 INFORMS Fellows Award lunch took place last Monday he said to me: "Anna, we take a licking but we keep on ticking."

I thought that statement was simply perfect and it speaks to the importance of resilience.


Another favorite comment that  I received was  from Professor Michael Florian of the University of Montreal, who is also an INFORMS Fellow and a recipient of the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to transportation science. At the reception at the Transportation Science & Logistics Society business meeting (also last Monday), Florian and I reminisced about Martin Beckmann, (also a Robert Herman Award recipient),  one of the authors of the classic Studies in the Economics of Transportation book, who is in his mid 80s and still going strong.We talked about physical fitness and stamina and, since Florian is a skier, he said to me: "Anna, do you know what happens to skiers? They do not die, they just go downhill."

And, speaking of resiliency, one of my doctoral students, Dong "Michelle" Li, and I arrived back from Minneapolis to Amherst around 1:00AM Wednesday morning and, after only a few hours of sleep, we were off to speak at a Manufacturing Technology Networking event hosted and organized by Raytheon. The event took place at the Tewksbury Country Club (our first time there) and we were so lucky that Mr. James Capistran, the Executive Director of the UMass Innovation Institute, gave us a ride, via gorgeous route 2 with the radiant Fall foliage, in his nice new car with a voice-operated GPS.

Michelle and I were the only invited female speakers so it was essential to show up and to  give our presentations, which we did and we had a great time.Speaking of the serendipity of showing up and the importance of face time, my husband's grad school room-mate in physics at Brown University, who works now at Raytheon,  showed up to see me. What a great surprise it was. My brother also works at Raytheon so the event was extra special. The presentations were by faculty from UMass Amherst, UMass Lowell, RPI, MIT, and WPI.  So many knowledgeable techies and geeks were at the Raytheon event so the questions were great. There were two parallel sessions, and my chairman also spoke in a set of sessions parallel to ours. There were about 200 attendees, which also included suppliers and Raytheon personnel even from Arizona and California.

My presentation was on "Networks Against Time: From Food to Pharma." In my presentation,  I focused on some of the highlights of our latest research including findings reported in our book "Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products."

Michelle's presentation was on "A Dynamic Network Oligopoly Model with Transportation Costs, Product Differentiation, and Quality Competition." Her talk was based on our paper of the same name, which is now in press in the journal Computational Economics.

We managed to get a few photos taken during some of the breaks and during my presentation.

Thanks to Raytheon for a very special workshop!

Was This One the Best One Ever?! - Photos from the INFORMS Minneapolis Conference

Those of us who were at the INFORMS Annual Conference in Minneapolis, which took place October 6-9, 2013 will never forget it!

I have been going to INFORMS conferences since I graduated from Brown University but,  last year, since I was on sabbatical in Sweden, missed the Phoenix one -- my collaborators and students were there, though, in full force.

Not only was the venue of this year's conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center great with 8 miles of Sky Walks (warm, dry, and carpeted) to navigate through downtown from location to location, and with the beautiful Loring Park close by, but the talks and events kept us engaged, entertained, and informed. I would say that time was too short but that means that the conference was very successful.  I very much enjoyed such new initiatives as Coffee with a New Member and even the New Members Breakfast at which we could meet new INFORMS members.

Seeing friends and former students and colleagues from around the globe was the biggest plus and taking part in various awards ceremonies energizing and so pleasant.

The INFORMS staff and conference organizers did an outstanding job -- thank you, thank you, thank you!

Below I have posted some photos. I know that many of us arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning, but it was worth it!

The new members breakfast at which various fora (WORMS, JFIG) and societies networked

We had meetings within the meeting in the form of various journal editorial board meetings -- a great lunch hosted by Wiley for the International Transactions in Operational Research board

We interacted with the great INFORMS staff

And when the sun came out on Monday enjoyed some of the sights outdoors

We celebrated our students' achievements through various awards (student chapter, Judith Liebman, etc.)

We celebrated the recipients of various awards including the WORMS Award given to Dr. Kathryn Stecke by the President of WORMS, Dr. Laura McLay of the University of Wisconsin Madison,  and Dr. Susan Albin of Rutgers

We did more networking and catching up

We were very excited to see our latest book, Networks Against Time: Supply Chain Analytics for Perishable Products, on display at the Springer booth

We learned from fabulous plenary talk presenters  about the latest results in operations research and the management sciences and analytics

And members of my supernetworks team gave many talks

We dined together and had so much fun

As the President of INFORMS, Dr. Anne Robinson, who is also the Director of Supply Chain Strategy and Analytics at Verizon, wrote me, after I thanked her, Dr. Olga Raskina, and various members of the INFORMS staff for such a great conference: The energy level and interest in our community these days is breath-taking and I completely agree.

Until we all meet again in person (face time really matters), keep up the great work!

And for those that could not join us or just want to further reminisce and hear about other perspectives, events, and impressions, do check out the various blogsposts and social media.

Photos from the Fabulous WORMS (Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Lunch at INFORMS Minneapolis

As the President of WORMS, the inimitable Dr. Laura McLay of the University of Wisconsin Madison stated, the best kept secret of our Annual INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Conference is now out and it is the WORMS luncheon.

This is always one of my favorite events and I tell my students (present and past) to get their tickets early since they sell out quickly.

This year's WORMS luncheon took place on Tuesday, October 8 in Minneapolis at the magnificent Convention Center. Below I include some photos from this event. Notice that men are definitely welcome and this year, as in many past years, Dr. Eric Wolman, one of the recipients of the George Kimball Medal (along with Rina Schneur of Verizon), was in attendance.

Below I capture the specialness of this event through photos that I took this past Tuesday.

First, thanks to the sponsors of the WORMS lunch!

Tracy Cahall of INFORMS and one of our doctoral students from the Isenberg School at the door

Smiling attendees at the luncheon tables

At the above table are several of my former doctoral students, a present student, and friends

Another highlight besides the great company and conversations plus food at the luncheon is the awarding of the WORMS Award. This year's recipient is Dr. Kathryn (Kathy) Stecke of UTDallas. Dr. Susan Albin of Rutgers chaired this year's award committee and shared with us some of the tributes to Kathy in the letters in her nomination packet.

Dr. Laura McLay and Dr. Susan Albin presenting Dr. Kathryn Stecke with the 2013 WORMS Award in the photo above

 

To find out more about WORMS and its various activities, please check out the WORMS page on the INFORMS website.

From communities such as WORMS and INFORMS we gain sustenance throughout the year in our busy professional lives, so do become a member, enjoy the benefits, and help us to grow and support women and men in Operations Research and the Management Sciences + Analytics!

Defying Gravity and Success is the Best Revenge - Nurturing STEM Talent in Our Students, Females and Males

The article by Eileen Pollack in The New York Times, Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science? is a must read. Eileen was one of only two females to receive an undergrad degree in physics from Yale in 1978 and writes eloquently about her experiences and those of other females then and more recently in the pursuit of studies in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. She asks a fundamental question as to why still in the new millennium there are so few women in science and math. The conclusion reached in her very thoughtful and well-written article, filled with highlights from various studies as well as personal stories, is that it is the culture and the lack of support and mentorship.

She ends her aticle by describing a picnic back at Yale recently at which there were several female grad students (it was a picnic for the physics and astrophysics departments) in which there were a few female grad students including one African American.  Pollack concludes as follows:
 

The young black woman told me she did her undergraduate work at a historically black college, then entered a master’s program designed to help minority students develop the research skills and one-on-one mentoring relationships that would help them make the transition to a Ph.D. program. Her first year at Yale was rough, but her mentors helped her through. “As my mother always taught me,” she said, “success is the best revenge.” 

As so many studies have demonstrated, success in math and the hard sciences, far from being a matter of gender, is almost entirely dependent on culture — a culture that teaches girls math isn’t cool and no one will date them if they excel in physics; a culture in which professors rarely encourage their female students to continue on for advanced degrees; a culture in which success in graduate school is a matter of isolation, competition and ridiculously long hours in the lab; a culture in which female scientists are hired less frequently than men, earn less money and are allotted fewer resources.

The above speaks to resiliency and the role that, we, as educators, have in nurturing talent and confidence in our students, both females and males alike, in technical fields.  I teach in a business school but have 3 degrees in Applied Math, with a PhD in the specialty of operations research.  I love math, computer programming, and the applications that our tools and methodologies can help to formulate and solve from transportation to financial services to healthcare to logistics and supply chains. I have written about gender inequality in business schools as well.

A kind sentence can make a difference in a student's life and can give her (or him) the confidence to believe in her or himself and to pursue  advanced degrees and careers in areas where you may stand out (this may have some negatives, at first, but people will remember you).

My seventh grade math teacher, Mrs. Fuller, back in Yonkers, NY, said to me, "One day you will be a calculus professor." That statement has stayed with me to this day as have those that have said: "Anna, being a professor is the loneliest profession," and "Anna, the higher you rise, the greater of a target you will be." The latter two were by two of my male professors at Brown and there is wisdom in both statements, which I appreciate.

And culture is clearly so important so we need to increase the visibility of female scientists, engineers, and also business professionals and scholars. The Times article noted the rather stereotypical representation of female scientists and females in the TV series Big Bang Theory.

Let me give you a VERY cool and REAL example of a top female scientist, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the UMass Rising gala event last April that I wrote about -- the astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman. Cady received her undergrad degree from MIT and her PhD from UMass Amherst in polymer science and engineering.

The photo of Cady and me below was taken at the UMass Rising gala. Cady lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and son when not training and flying in outer space. She was one of the Masters of the Ceremony (along with Ken Feinberg).

There was an article yesterday in our local newspaper, the great Daily Hampshire Gazette (DHG), about Dr. Cady Coleman and how she consulted with Sandra Bullock on the movie Gravity, which will be released today and which also stars George Clooney. She was also featured in Mother Jones with the full article here as well as in Wired. 

In the DHG article, Cady states: I think it's an especially good film for girls. They need models of strong, courageous women who may not always know what to do, but can figure it out. I liked it, in that respect.

 So do be positive with your students -- a few words that recognize talent and an achievement can change a direction of a life!

Supernetwork Center Associates Will Present a Lot of Papers at INFORMS Minneapolis

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, the Annual INFORMS Conference serves not only as an outstanding professional and social networking venue at which we also acquire a lot of information on the latest research by presenters from around the globe on operations research, management science, and analytics, but also it is a great place for a reunion!

It is the venue where many of the Supernetwork Center Associates of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management gather!  I founded this Center at the Isenberg School of Management  in 2001 and have been its Director ever since.

Hence, we have been very busy not only with the beginning of the academic year, but also with the preparation of the talks that we will be giving at INFORMS Minneapolis, beginning this Sunday.

This will be an especially thrilling INFORMS meeting for us, since the UMass Amherst Student Chapter will be receiving a Magna Cum Laude Award (its seventh in a series of awards from INFORMS for its activities), Supernetwork Center Associate Dr. Amir H. Masoumi, who is now at Manhattan College, will be receiving the Judith B. Liebman Award (the third Supernetwork Center Associate to be recognized this way), and, yes, you may have heard, I will be inducted as an INFORMS Fellow (this recognition means the world to me -- thank you ever so much).

As the Director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, I must say that I could not be prouder of the great work that our Center Associates have been doing. 

Just to give you a sample of our presentation at INFORMS Minneapolis:

Center Associate Professor Jose Cruz of the School of Business at UCONN has organized a great session: Sustainable and Responsible Supply Chain Management, at which 3 papers by members of our group will be presented, including a paper by Professor Trisha Anderson of Texas Wesleyan University and a paper by Professor Tina Wakolbinger of Vienna and Professor Fuminori Toyasaki of York University in Toronto with Thomas Nowak (Tina's doctoral student).

Center Associate Professor Patrick Qiang of Penn State Malvern will be presenting his latest work in a best paper Service Science session -- good luck!

Our Supernetwork Center colleague, Professor Dmytro Matsypura from the University of Sydney in Australia, who is now on sabbatical at the University of Pittsburgh, will be speaking on his work with Professors Kalinowski and Savelsbergh (who was also elected an INFORMS Fellow in 2013).

Amir H. Masoumi (mentioned above) will be presenting our latest work on humanitarian logistics and disaster relief done also with Center Associate Professor Min Yu of the University of Portland. Min will be speaking on our competitive food supply chain research, which was recently published in the European Journal of Operational Research.

My doctoral student, Dong "Michelle" Li, will speak on our work on pharmaceutical supply chains and outsourcing, which is in press in the International Transactions in Operational Research.

And I will be speaking on the network economics of cyber crime, which is the result of a grant and multidisciplinary collaboration with colleagues at UMass Amherst and the Isenberg School.

The above is not even an exhaustive list of the presentations that Supernetwork Center Associates will be giving but it gives an idea of  the breadth and depth of our research activities.

For the latest information on our Center activities, please visit our website.

Looking forward to a super INFORMS conference!

Doctoral Students Tuning Up for INFORMS Minneapolis

A very successful activity of our award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, which we initiated last year, was the Tune-Up for the Annual INFORMS Conference. You may recall that the conference was in Phoenix last year.

This year, we will be holding another such event, and it will take place this Friday, from 1-3PM at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst.

The doctoral students will be giving the presentations that they will be delivering next week at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Minneapolis.

Information is on the flier below, which the students have prepared. Three presenters are doctoral students in Management Science at the Isenberg School and one is from the College of Engineering.

 This tune-up event gives students (and faculty) the opportunity to learn more about one another's research and provides a nice, welcoming venue in which the students can practice their public speaking and presentation skills. Feedback will be provided and questions are welcome.

This year, one of my doctoral students, Dong "Michelle" Li, will be presenting the paper, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Networks with Outsourcing Under Price and Quality Competition, by
Anna Nagurney, Dong Li, and Ladimer S. Nagurney, which is in press in the International Transactions in Operational Research. Her presentation can be downloaded here.

The other students will be talking about their work on models and algorithms for applications from transportation (airline and shipping) to healthcare.

Hope to see some of you at the Tune-up on Friday at the Isenberg School!

More information on the chapter's activities can be found on its website.