A week has passed since the 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting resolved in the warmth of Phoenix, Arizona, and we, the conferees at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, have already started reminiscing about our days at the Phoenix Convention Center where the conference was hosted. Coming back to cold Massachusetts, we were inevitably wondering whether it was the excitement of all the scholars and practitioners at the meeting that resulted in those above-100-degree hot spell days in Phoenix, especially of those who were experiencing the annual meeting for the first time, like some of our officers.
The days were long but needed to be longer for all the sessions, panels, and talks that our Advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, our current and former officers, and our members had in their plans. On top of presenting on “Defense Critical Supply Chain Networks and Risk Management with the Inclusion of Labor” in a community committee choice session titled “Disaster Management: Networks and Grids,” Professor Nagurney participated in multiple panels and meetings, such as: “The Role of Operations Research in Disaster Risk Reduction, Building Disaster Resilience and Effective Crisis Response”; “Optimization and Resilience: Enhancing Community Resilience Against Natural Hazards”; “Meet the Editors of International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR).”
Our current Vice-President, Sindhoora Prakash, started the conference very early on Sunday morning, presenting in the session on “OR Models in Healthcare Systems.”
Then, before our current President, Dana Hassani, presents his first published paper in the “Global Supply Chains” session on Monday afternoon, our previous President, Paola Furlanetto, presented her research in the early morning hours in the session titled “Modeling for Equity and Sustainability.”
Then came the turn for our Treasurer, Josh Gladstone, and our YouTube officer, Semih Boz, to present on Tuesday afternoon at different sessions on “Assortment Planning” and “Drone Delivery Systems.”
Our former Secretary, Vivian Nwadiaru, who was also among the recipients of the 2023 SCOT INFORMS scholarship, presented on Tuesday at the session on the “DEI Ambassador Program,” while our former Treasurer, Yiwen Wang, and our Social Media Officer, Busra Karkili, presented on the last day of the conference, i.e., Wednesday morning, on sessions titled “Planning and Operating Hydropower” and “Innovations in Public Sector Operations.” Busra was also a proud panelist at “MIF Life as a Ph.D. Student Panel.”
And what better way to wrap up a conference than receiving the 2023 INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Award with the Magna Cum Laude degree for the UMass Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS.
We came back to Amherst, and the first thing we did as a Chapter was to set a time for a proud photoshoot with our deserved award. It was a Sunday morning, but some donuts and a lot of joy from bringing the award plaque to Amherst gathered us at the Business Innovation Hub building at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
And last but not least, we must mention all the new connections we made thanks to the Annual Meeting and the opportunity to meet and greet all the old friends, former officers, colleagues, classmates, etc.
We already miss our time at the conference and downtown Phoenix. All we can do is wait for the 2024 INFORMS Annual Conference. However, in the meantime, our officers and members will engage in impactful research and professional service, and we will hold many, many exciting events through our INFORMS Student Chapter to obtain yet another INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Award, this time at Seattle, Washington.