On Thursday, May 9, 2024, we held our end-of-semester party. At UMass Amherst, this marked the final week of classes before finals, providing us with a well-deserved opportunity for fun and peace of mind. We gathered in the executive classroom N135 of the Douglas and Diana Berthiaume Business Innovation Hub, recently renamed in honor of Douglas and Diana Berthiaume, the most generous cash donors in the history of Isenberg School of Management and UMass Amherst.
Officers, many of our members, and faculty from Isenberg School of Management and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering joined us, creating a delightful evening of company and connection.
There were lots of delicious food, including pizza, sandwiches, salad, and fruit, plus Ukrainian pierogies and desserts, kindly provided by our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney.
Professor Nagurney presented officers from last academic year and this year with signed and framed certificates for outstanding service to the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. This gesture came as a delightful surprise following officers’ hard work in organizing numerous seminars and social activities.
UMass INFORMS has always been a platform for learning and connectivity for our students and faculty. We are proud to maintain this platform at such high levels of activity year after year, and we are grateful for all the resultant friendships and memories.
While this marks the Chapter’s last event of the academic year, we will be back next year with more exciting seminars and events. Many members are already planning for the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle.
As always, please stay updated on our blog and social media for future events and activities.
The past month was fruitful for UMass INFORMS Chapter officers as they achieved notable accomplishments. This post commemorates and celebrates these acheivements.
Our Vice-President, Sindhoora Prakash, and Blog Manager, Yukti Kathuria, embarked on their journey for the TAG Master Modeler Competition 2024 in February. Their team was titled “OR”ganized Chaos. They traveled to Atlanta, Georgia last month and emerged victorious in the TAG Master Modeler Competition.
Their work supports the noble cause of the Davis Direction Foundation in helping people to combat addiction.
Later, Sindhoora and Yukti presented the results of their impactful research at the INFORMS Analytics Conference in Orlando, Florida.
Their motto is to “continue leveraging data for meaningful impact and positive change.” The UMass INFORMS Chapter is proud to have had Sindhoora and Yukti serve as officers this academic year.
Additionally, this week, our President, Dana Hassani, was honored as the recipient of the Exceptional Impact Scholarship from the Operations and Information Management department at the Isenberg School of Management, recognizing his research activities during this academic year.
Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, presented the award certificate to Dana. Professor Nagurney also serves as Dana’s PhD supervisor.
Congratulations to Sindhoora, Yukti, and Dana for their achievements. We will celebrate their and our other officers’ accomplishments, as well as all the Chapter’s activities in the past academic year, at our End-of-Semester Party next week. Make sure to check our blog for coverage and photos of the event.
As always, please stay updated on our blog and social media outlets as we continue to organize many exciting events.
On Friday, April 5, the UMass INFORMS community had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Professor Chandra Bhat, Joe J. King Endowed Chair Professor in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and the Editor of Transportation Research B. The talk was part of the Boyer Lecture Series, organized by Professor Mike Knodler, the Boyer Professor and Director of the UMass Transportation Center. Professor Knodler invited UMass INFORMS and its faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, to help coordinate the event, and we were more than glad to have the opportunity to collaborate in hosting such an insightful talk.
The talk was scheduled for after lunch, but beforehand, the UMass Transportation Center treated Professor Bhat to a tasty meal at the cozy Commonwealth Restaurant here at UMass, accompanied by professors and students from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor Nagurney of the Isenberg School of Management.
Professor Bhat had previously been a faculty member at UMass before moving to UT Austin. This visit was nostalgic for him and all his old friends and colleagues at UMass. Professor Nagurney shared fond memories of Professor Bhat’s days here at UMass. Noteworthy is that right before kindly making the long journey to Amherst, Professor Bhat was at Chile attending a conference.
Professor Bhat’s lecture was titled “A Study on Telemedicine Adoption, with Implications for Healthcare, Telecommunications, and Land Use Transportation Planning.” Throughout the talk, he discussed multiple research projects conducted by himself and his PhD students, emphasizing the interdisciplinary approach necessary for transportation research today. The lecture focused on telemedicine adoption in the post-COVID era and provided insights for various sectors.
After the lecture, attendees enjoyed delicious food provided by UMass Catering while chatting with Professor Bhat and other faculty and students present at the event. Professor Nagurney captured a beautiful photo of three of our officers, Dana, Ismael, and Samira, with Professor Bhat and Professor Knodler.
Sadly, this was the last seminar coordinated by UMass INFORMS for the spring semester. However, we look forward to hosting an end-of-semester party with plenty of food and great company, and we are excited to return with many more exciting events next fall.
As always, please keep checking our blog posts and follow our social media accounts to stay updated on our upcoming events.
On March 15th, 2024, the UMass INFORMS Student Chapter had the honor of hosting Dr. Ayse Selin Kocaman, an Associate Professor in the Industrial Engineering Department at Bilkent University and a visiting scholar at the MIT Energy Initiative. Dr. Kocaman delivered an engaging presentation titled “Optimization-Based Solutions for the Design and Operations of Sustainable Electric Power Systems.”
Our president, Dana Hassani, gave a brief introduction highlighting Prof. Kocaman’s achievements. Prof. Kocaman has notably received the Distinguished Young Scientist (BAGEP) Award from the Science Academy of Turkey, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Career Award, and the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) College of Sustainable Operations Ph.D. Proposal Award.
Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, also welcomed Dr. Kocaman and expressed gratitude for her acceptance of our invitation as the guest speaker. Coincidentally, Professor Nagurney was scheduled to speak at MIT shortly after and had a pleasant conversation with Dr. Kocaman about their shared acquaintances at MIT.
During her presentation, Dr. Kocaman provided an overview of her research projects, which focus on economically efficient and environmentally sustainable energy systems. Her work includes developing optimization-based solutions for the energy poverty problem.
Dr. Kocaman discussed the primary energy consumption sources and sectors in the US and their interconnections, highlighting the shift from centralized to decentralized power systems, such as grid-connected wind farms, hydro power plants, solar PV power plants, flow control, and wind farms with storage. Dr. Kocaman showcased two-stage stochastic programs for making sizing and design decisions for hybrid energy systems.
Dr. Kocaman went on to present her impactful work on energy infrastructure costs and power distribution systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. She highlighted planar facility location-allocation problems for rural electrification and spatial planning of decentralized systems.
After the presentation, we hosted Dr. Kocaman for lunch at the Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst. The food was delightful, but what truly made the occasion most memorable, as always, was the company.
We would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Kocaman for graciously accepting our invitation and delivering an insightful talk. We also extend our thanks to all ISOM and MIE faculty, to all chapter members, and Professor Nagurney for her support of this event.
As always, please stay tuned for our exciting events here at UMass Amherst, whether it’s during this spring semester or for future events.
Coinciding with the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UMass INFORMS Student Chapter had the honor of hosting Dr. Ina Ganguli, an esteemed Professor of Economics in the departments of Economics and Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as a guest speaker on February 23rd. Dr. Ganguli delivered a compelling presentation titled “Scientists in the Crosshairs: Impacts of War, Crisis, and Conflict on Ukrainian Science.”
Our president, Dana Hassani, introduced Dr. Ganguli and enumerated a few of her many achievements and prestigious positions, such as Director of the UMass Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI), Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Affiliated Researcher at the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), Faculty Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Laboratory for Innovation Science (LISH) at Harvard University, Fulbright scholar in Ukraine in 2004, and U.S. Embassy Policy Specialist Fellow in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan.
Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, also took a minute to remind everyone of the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, compliment Professor Ganguli on her many academic contributions, and appreciate her for accepting our invitation as a guest speaker.
During her presentation, Professor Ganguli emphasized specific channels, such as the loss of human and physical capital due to the ongoing war, as well as disruptions to international collaborations, through which Ukrainian science and scholars have been adversely affected. Furthermore, she underscored the contrasting impacts observed in war-affected regions such as Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine compared to Crimea, which was forcefully annexed by Russia in 2014. She noted that the disruptions to Ukrainian science did not solely emerge in 2022 but rather originated during the post-Soviet era, with further exacerbation occurring during the 2014 conflict in the Donbas region and the annexation of Crimea. Moreover, she highlighted that amidst these challenging circumstances, international collaborations have had a positive effect on scientific contributions from Ukrainian scholars and academic institutions by mitigating the decline in publications.
After the presentation, we, along with our advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, hosted Dr. Ganguli for lunch at the Commonwealth Restaurant at UMass Amherst. The food was delightful, and the desserts were enticing; however, what made it most memorable was the excellent company. After lunch, we had the pleasure of recording an interview with Dr. Ganguli for UMass INFORMS’ YouTube Channel, which will soon be available.
Once again, we would like to express our gratitude to Dr. Ganguli for graciously accepting our invitation and delivering an insightful talk. We also extend our thanks to all faculty and members who attended this event, to our officers for all their facilitating efforts, and to Professor Nagurney for her ever-present support.
As always, please stay updated on our social media and blog posts as we continue to organize many more exciting events here at UMass Amherst throughout the Spring 2024 semester.
[Below you can find Isenberg School of Management’s news coverage of Dr. Tymofiy Mylovanov’s talk hosted by UMass INFORMS. You can also read the original article on the Isenberg School of Management’s website.]
“In crisis, it’s important that humans do what they agreed to do,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh when he visited the Isenberg School of Management on February 12, 2024.
The former minister of economic development, trade, and agriculture of Ukraine gave a presentation to the UMass INFORMS student chapter on his experience leading the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) during wartime in Ukraine, alongside his experience in higher education in Ukraine and the partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE. Mylovanov highlighted the struggles that KSE faculty and students are facing—a 20-minute drive on a highway could take as long as five hours.
What Does It Mean To Be A University During War?
“There is light, there is food, there is shelter, kids are studying,” Mylovanov said. “If we don’t create such an environment, kids will leave. And we can win the war, but we won’t have people. We have to prepare for people leaving Ukraine, trauma, and conflict.” He discussed how funding, donor priorities, government and stakeholder objectives, migration, mobilization, and student body all play a more prominent role in higher education amid war. Yet KSE continues to aim to recruit top talent and pilot rapidly with stronger team alignment and motivation, market-driven products, and quality in everything done by the university. The designation of a CEO, the pushing of payroll, the encouragement to get students to safety outside of the school and communicate how this was done. Some students left the country and university, some people reached out for jobs after finding safety, and some joined the military.
“Your principles have to be very, very agile,” noted Mylovanov, thinking about the impact of war on university life. Basic needs, such as toilets, need to be considered. “The thing that scared me the most on the first day of the war is that I ran out of gas,” he said. “The gas stations are overwhelmed. I still have nightmares about it.” However, amid everything, KSE has seen enrollment triple, as the school opted for offline learning throughout the war. KSE also has recently added eight new majors, including psychology, due to the impact of war on Ukrainians’ mental health.
KSE’s Impacts On The War
KSE has played a prominent role in the support of Ukraine in the current war, with more than 10,000 donors donating over $87 million dollars to war efforts in 2022-2023. Mylovanov emphasized the role the school will take once the war is over as well, highlighting Ukraine’s goals of maintaining democratic practices, a resilient and recovering economy, and national defense and high-tech manufacturing support.
Isenberg and UMass Amherst have partnered with KSE since March 2022 through a program assisting scholars and students affected by the ongoing war on Ukraine. The partnership resulted in a virtual scholar program, hosting 15 Ukrainian researchers, and an on-campus residency program, hosting four.
[Below is the blog post Professor Anna Nagurney, the faculty advisor of the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, has written on Dr. Tymofiy Mylovanov’s visit to UMass Amherst. You can also read the original post on Professor Nagurney’s blog.]
This past Monday, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting Dr. Tymofiy Mylovanov, the President of the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This was his second visit to UMass Amherst – his first was on February 22, 2023.
His visit was very timely, as was his lecture, since we are approaching the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Mylovanov had sent me a message just a few days before his arrival saying that he would like to visit and speak and, despite multiple logistical hurdles and scheduling issues, we made it work.
Leading a university is extremely challenging and leading one in wartime, with success, is extraordinary.
I have had the great honor of serving as a Co-Chair of the KSE Board of Directors, having been elected shortly after the full-scale invasion. But my relationship with KSE has been over half a decade, since I also serve on its International Academic Board and its Board of Directors. Also, back in March 2022, UMass Amherst and KSE established a partnership, which has further synergized our connections, and is now supporting both exchange students from KSE as well as Virtual Scholars in Ukraine (we will be starting the second round soon) to reduce brain drain.
The leadership exhibited by KSE President Mylovanov is one characterized by: immense care for the safety of his students, faculty, and staff; agility in creating new degree programs at KSE; talent in connecting with thought leaders and disseminating the needs and accomplishments of KSE to donors, stakeholders, and the world at large; expanding KSE to include a business school, and supporting the outstanding KSE Institute, which produces many white papers and studies of relevance in wartime that are regularly cited by international media, plus growing the KSE Charitable Foundation to assist in the financing of humanitarian endeavors in Ukraine. Such important activities require steadfastness, great intelligence, resilience, and the ability to get data and information quickly. It also requires innovation and associated thinking under immense pressures and even danger.
What also truly inspires me is his understanding of the importance of not only face to face education but also visiting supporters and donors and advocating for KSE and Ukraine in person.
Below is a photo of Dr. Mylovanov presenting at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst this past Monday.
UMass Amherst issued this nice press release announcing his talk. The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, in turn, prepared this nice poster, and the students, along with the International Programs Office at UMass and the Isenberg School helped with the logistics.
During his visit, Dr. Mylovanov met with top university administrators, faculty, and students, and also had a chance to chat with guests. At the meeting with the Provost, the VCRE, and the Director of our International Programs Office, Dr. Mylovanov made a statement that I found very moving and, also, informative. He said that we all will die, so we need to identify what will be our legacy. His, he believes, is building up the Kyiv School of Economics and that is “his mile.” He also, when asked, responded to the challenges of being a public persona. He is, above his educational leadership role, also a frequent guest on CNN, BBC, and other media and news platforms. He said that he plays a public role because he believes that there are positives and, I believe, his sharing of information and commentary is beneficial not only to KSE but also to those interested in Ukraine around the globe.
I was thrilled to have him emphasize the importance of the partnership between UMass Amherst and KSE and its highly original model of supporting both students, through the exchange program, and also research since Virtual Scholars in Ukraine are partnered with Faculty Hosts at UMass Amherst. Last year, for example, there were 9 Virtual Scholars in Ukraine working with faculty at the Isenberg School, and 15 Scholars in total placed with UMass faculty. We have organized joint symposia, and have published terrific journal articles and have also had multiple conference presentations based on the collaborations across the miles. The friendships that have been made support the researchers in Ukraine and are enriching to those of us who have the honor of working with them. Some additional information on the partnership can be found here.
Below is a photo of KSE President Mylovanov with two of our KSE exchange students after the lunch on Monday.
The attendance at his presentation at the Isenberg School was excellent, despite a short notice, and also a last minute room change.
The UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter conducted an interview with Dr. Mylovanov and a gift was presented to him.
It was wonderful to have discussions with him over lunch and dinner and I am very grateful to all the administrators who made time in their very busy schedules to meet with us.
Below is a collage of photos capturing the highlights of Mylovanov’s visit. Thanks to all who took part. And, with a pending snowstorm, we managed to find him a hotel next to Bradley Airport and he caught a 6 AM flight to DC on Tuesday morning (his 10 AM flight had been cancelled) and made his meetings there in time. Quite a few neighboring universities were closed on Tuesday but not UMass Amherst.
Thanks to KSE President Tymofiy Mylovanov for the extraordinary leadership of KSE in Ukraine! Information on KSE is here.
[As always, please stay tuned for more coverage as we continue to highlight all our Spring 2024 activities and events.]
Now that the holiday season is over and we have started our journey in 2024, it is an excellent opportunity to look back at our Chapter’s last event of 2023. On Friday, December 15, 2023, we gathered with our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, officers, members, and other faculty and students interested in INFORMS to cherish all our memories and accomplishments in 2023 over delicious food.
We spent two hours of intellectual conversation and excellent company while indulging in delicious Ukrainian food and desserts from Professor Nagurney and pizza, fruit, and salad from our nationally recognized UMass Catering.
Even Asta and Marharyta, two Ukrainian exchange students who were part of a panel in our previous event, joined us as they missed the taste of delicious Ukrainian Varenyky (or Pierogi as the Polish call it).
Our activities and accomplishments would have been impossible without the everlasting support and passion of our faculty advisor, Professor Nagurney, for the Chapter, our officers’ effort and teamwork, and our members’ presence at our events. As such, the Chapter’s current president, Dana, would like to dedicate this post to Professor Nagurney, Semih, Busra, Josh, Sindhoora, Ismael, Samira, Yukti, and all our active members in gratitude for all their contributions to our Chapter in 2023; UMass Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS would have been pointless without all the friendships and connections.
In the end, we wish a great 2024 for all our readers on this blog. And, as always, please stay tuned as we will be back with many events and activities as the new semester unrolls at UMass Amherst.
P.S: Due to a migration of blogs at UMass Amherst to a new hosting environment, no new posts will be added before the end of the migration in February. The content on this blog, however, will remain available throughout the migration period.
A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of hosting a panel with Ukrainian exchange students from the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) at UMass Amherst on higher education in the US and Ukraine, the similarities and differences, and their experiences in the time they have spent in Amherst. We decided to interview the students for those who missed the panel, and you can now watch the interview on our YouTube channel.
Again, we thank Asta Motrenko, Iryna Horobets, Khrystyna Buryhina, and Marharyta Nechytailo for agreeing to have this interview with us for our YouTube channel and for spending this time with us.
It has been three weeks since the 2023 INFORMS Annual Conference in which the UMass Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS won the INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Award with the magna cum laude degree, and we briefly highlighted our photoshoot with the award plaque in a previous recap post of the conference. However, looking back at the photos, it would be a shame not to dedicate a separate post on our blog to some of the pictures we took that day. The photoshoot was held on Sunday, October 22, 2023, at the Business Innovation Hub at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. First and foremost, here is a close-up picture of the plaque:
Here are a couple of pictures of our former and current officers, Paola Furlanetto, Dana Hassani, Busra Karkili, Semih Boz, Vivian Nwadiaru, Yiwen Wang, Josh Gladstone, and Yukti Kathuria, who have all played an essential role in winning the award, along with our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney:
And what is a photoshoot with an award plaque if it is all serious and official! So here is a picture highlighting the joy that our officers and members felt by bringing the award back home to Amherst:
Finally, as always, we encourage you to keep updated on our blog posts for more coverage as we continue to showcase all our exciting activities and events.
