UMass INFORMS Student Chapter

If you missed Professor Muge Capan’s insightful talk, “Improving Diagnostic Equity in Ambulatory Settings: Research to Practice,” you can now catch our interview with her on our YouTube channel. Professor Capan graciously shared her research journey and innovative approaches to addressing diagnostic disparities in healthcare.

We deeply appreciate Professor Capan’s time and her invaluable contributions as our guest. Thank you, Professor Capan, for doing the interview and sharing your expertise with our community.

Stay tuned for more interviews and talks, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

On Friday, December 13, 2024, the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter concluded the semester with an end-of-semester party—an excellent opportunity to celebrate achievements and connect before the holidays.

This year’s event was particularly special as we proudly celebrated receiving the Chapter’s Magna Cum Laude Award at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting. This prestigious recognition highlights the dedication and hard work of our members and officers in fostering a vibrant, collaborative community.

The evening was filled with joy, laughter, and delicious food. Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, delighted us with her signature Ukrainian pierogies and desserts, complemented by pizza, sandwiches, salad, and fruit from UMass Catering. Members, officers, and faculty from the Isenberg School of Management and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering joined us, making the celebration truly memorable.

Reflecting on 2024, we are grateful for the connections, growth, and accomplishments of our Chapter. Thank you to everyone—our faculty advisor, officers, and members—who contributed to this year’s success. From academic discussions to social gatherings, we are proud of the community we’ve built together. We look forward to even more exciting events and initiatives next semester.

Stay tuned to our blog and social media for updates on future events and activities. Have a wonderful holiday season, and see you in the new year!

The 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, marked another proud moment for the UMass Amherst Student Chapter of INFORMS, as we were honored to receive the INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Award with the Magna Cum Laude degree. While we shared highlights of the conference in an earlier blog post, our recent photoshoot with the award plaque deserves a dedicated spotlight of its own. Here is a close-up of the 2024 award plaque, a testament to the hard work and dedication of our chapter members.

This year, the photoshoot took place in the beautiful inner circle of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Despite the windy weather making outdoor photos a challenge, the background showcased parts of the building’s less-seen beauty, providing a perfect setting to commemorate our achievement.

During the photoshoot, we also captured a unique moment indoors where sunlight created interesting patterns of light and shadow on our faces. While not the perfect lighting, this photo is showcasing the candid atmosphere of the day as we celebrated this achievement together.

We also thank our faculty advisor, Professor Nagurney, for her continued guidance and support, which make achievements like this possible. As we look ahead to next year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, we stay committed to keep this momentum going.

A week and a day have passed since the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting wrapped up in Seattle, Washington.

Though we’re back in Amherst, the excitement from our time at the Seattle Convention Center Summit, and Hyatt Regency stays with us. Seattle gifted us a few moments of sunshine amid its rain, adding a bright touch to our experience.

Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, opened the first day with a compelling presentation, “Defense Critical Supply Chain Networks and Risk Management with the Inclusion of Labor: Dynamics and Quantification of Performance and the Ranking of Nodes and Links.”

Professor Nagurney participated in multiple panels and meetings. She also participated in the panel “What Does Our Past Tell Us About the Future” and attended a vibrant Editorial Board meeting for the Journal of Global Optimization and Optimization Letters. Professor Nagurney was joined by her current PhD students, Ismael M. Pour, Samira Samadi, both presenting for the first time, and Dana Hassani. It was also wonderful to reconnect with her former PhD students Professors Pritha Dutta and Grace Ke.

Our former Chapter President, Dana Hassani, presented his work, “A Multiperiod Multicommodity Capacitated International Agricultural Trade Network Equilibrium Model with Applications to Ukraine in Wartime,” during a session on Disaster Response Operations and Social Responsibility. Congratulations to Dana on his achievements, including his recent publication in Transportation Science!

Our current President, Ismael M. Pour, presented his paper, “A Spatial Price Network Equilibrium Paradox,” during the session on “Survival Analysis and Optimization Techniques,” on the last day of the conference.

Our current Vice President, Joshua Gladstone, presented his work, “Pricing And Convenience Considerations In Omnichannel Assortment Planning,” in the session titled “Retail Analytics; and Assortment Planning,” on the last day of the conference.

Our current Treasurer, Samira Samadi, also marked her first INFORMS conference by presenting the paper “A Variational Inequality Trade Network Model in Prices and Quantities Under Commodity Losses,” co-authored with Professor Nagurney and Ismael M. Pour. We’re thrilled to announce that just after returning to Amherst, this paper was published.

One of our Social Media Officers, Semih Boz, shared his research, “Parcel Consolidation In Last Mile Delivery by Vehicle and Drone,” during the session on “Improving Societal Outcomes with Logistical Innovations” on the first day of the conference. Our other Social Media Officer, Gulten Busra Karkili, presented her work in the session “Innovations in Public Sector Operations,” on the last day of the conference.

One of our Blog post Officers, Yukti Kathuria, presented her work, “Analysis of Social Determinants of Health to Risk-Stratify Type II Diabetes Pathways,” in a flash session on “Data Science in Healthcare and Policy” on the second day of the conference. Our other Blog post Officer, Sindhoora Prakash, shared her research, “A Comparative Study Of Scheduling Approaches For Complex Care Programs with Multi-disciplinary Teams,” during the session on “Healthcare Operations” on the last day of the conference.

This year, the INFORMS Annual Meeting was record-breaking in scale, with so many sessions that navigating the app was an adventure! Many of our Chapter members presented, some for the first time, showcasing the depth and diversity of our research. For instance, Solmaz Abbaspour presented her research, “Equitable Supply-Demand Balancing: Tailoring Equitable Incentives for Demand Response Programs in Power Grids,” in the session “Recycling, Repurposing and Rebalancing in Precision Agriculture and Sustainable Systems” on the first day. Kelvin Ekun also presented his work, “Online Quotation Under Delayed Customer Feedback and Offline Production Scheduling,” during the session “Scheduling of Manufacturing and Service Processes” on the last day of the conference.

The highlight came at the Student Chapter Award Ceremony, where the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter received the Magna Cum Laude Award. This achievement reflects the guidance of our faculty advisor Professor Anna Nagurney and the leadership of our previous President Dana Hassani, and the dedication of all our Chapter members. This recognition embodies the hard work of our officers and the invaluable members.

Next week, we’ll gather for a photoshoot with our award. We are excited for the next INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta and look forward to seeing all of our colleagues there!

On October 11, 2024, we hosted a Tune-Up session where five of our student members presented their research and received valuable feedback from peers and faculty. Notably, for many of these students, this year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting will be their first experience attending this prestigious conference focused on Operations Research and Management Science.

The session began with lunch as everyone helped themselves to pizza and coffee while the speakers prepared to get their presentations set up.

Professor Nagurney also congratulated the student chapter officers for winning the Magna Cum Laude award for their activities. She further thanked all the presenters, faculty, and peers who showed up to give feedback to the students.

Our president, Ismael Pour, introduced the first presenter, Solmaz Abbaspour, who gave an illuminating talk on equitable supply-demand balancing.

Following Solmaz, Samira gave an exciting talk about trade network models under commodity losses. Ismael’s presentation on the price network equilibrium paradox was highly engaging. This was followed by Busra, who spoke about strategic frameworks for social welfare programs. Finally, Dana presented his work on multi-period, multi-commodity, capacitated international trade network models.

The audience was engaged throughout all the interesting presentations and had many questions, feedback, and suggestions for the speakers.

The session ended on a positive note, and all the presenters felt encouraged and prepared for their future presentations at the conference. We extend our sincere gratitude to all the students who volunteered to present at the Tune-Up session, as well as to the students and especially the faculty who attended and provided the presenters with valuable feedback. The insights shared during the event will help refine the research presentations, which will be showcased at this year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting.

Be sure to stay connected by regularly checking our blog and social media platforms, where we’ll continue to share updates on upcoming events and other exciting news.

As the new academic year begins and students return to campus, UMass INFORMS is excited to organize a variety of engaging events once again. On September 27, 2024, we kicked off the semester with our first event featuring Dr. Muge Capan, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Capan delivered an insightful presentation titled “Improving Diagnostic Equity in Ambulatory Settings: Research to Practice.”

Our new president, Ismael, welcomed Professor Capan and provided a brief introduction to her background.

Our faculty advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, welcomed Dr. Capan and expressed our gratitude for her acceptance of our invitation. She also congratulated Professor Capan on being featured on the university website for two consecutive days.

During her presentation, Dr. Capan shared an overview of her ongoing research projects across three key areas: diagnostic decision-making, provider workload, and maternal health, with a focus on diagnostic decision-making for this talk. Her project is structured into three parts: identifying and conceptualizing tools for addressing diagnostic errors and conducting chart reviews; analyzing the incidence of diagnostic errors and decision-making under uncertainty; and quantifying distributional disparities among patient subpopulations.

Following the presentation, the audience engaged with Dr. Capan by asking many thoughtful questions. There were several inquiries from PhD students in both the Isenberg School of Management and the MIE department, as well as questions from Professor Solak, the Chair of the OIM Department, Professor Hari Balasubramanian, and Professor Nagurney.

Refreshments, including coffee and bagels, were provided for both the speaker and the audience. Although the delivery was a bit late, our new officers handled the situation calmly, as one would expect from those in the operations research field. While the food was delightful, it was the company that truly made the occasion memorable.

As always, stay tuned for more exciting events at UMass Amherst, whether during this fall semester or in the future. Our next planned event will be the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting Tune-Up, and we hope to see you there!

The Fall 24′ semester officially started on Tuesday, September 3, at UMass Amherst and the campus is lively and full of bright faces of students once again.

UMass INFORMS Student Chapter had its first open meeting of the 2024-2025 academic year to decide on the officer roster, possible events, and prospective guest speakers. Our Chapter is now 20 years old, that is, 20 years of activity, seminars, social events, connections, and service. We will be celebrating Chapter’s 20th anniversary in our future events.

Please tune up to our blog and social media to hear about our activities in this academic year. We plan to have many exciting events as the semester unfolds.

As we highlighted in a previous post, the Chapter’s Vice President, Sindhoora Prakash, and our Social Media Officer, Yukti Kathuria, are the winners of the Technology Association of Georgia (Tag) Master Competition, which was co-sponsored by INFORMS.

Our officers received their award in April while attending the INFORMS Analytics Conference in Orlando, Florida. We are glad to see that Sindhoora and Yukti’s achievement has been covered in UMass news. You can read the post here.

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.