“[I]t seems to me that the term `linear programming’ is a most unfortunate phrase for this promising technique, particularly since many possible extensions appear to be in nonlinear directions. A more general yet more descriptive term, such as […]

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 […]

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 […]

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russians on February 24, 2022 is impacting food prices and food insecurity globally, creating major hardships with a pending hunger catastrophe.I have worked on agricultural supply chains for quite a few years, since […]

When I was a PhD student in the early 2000s, my advisor, Sheldon Jacobson, told me that some had once predicted the death of operations research. This came as a surprise to me, because it seemed like the discipline was flourishing. He agreed with me […]

It’s hard to believe that I started this blog fifteen years ago on April 2, 2007. Here are some milestones in the life of the blog: I published 762 posts. I started 105 drafts of blog posts that I never finished. Most of those drafts are a quick […]

Already in January 2022, I started being approached by journalists asking me whether I thought that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent, and my interview with a Bengali journalist was published on January 25, 2022 (in Bengali) in the Daily Amader […]

This year’s Final Four is set in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, with Duke, the University of North Carolina (UNC), Kansas, and Villanova facing off this weekend. This is the first time Duke and UNC will play in the tournament. At first […]

In an academic's life, one of the many joys is seeing one's students achieve milestones.Today was a very special day, since Mojtaba Salarpour,  my PhD student in Management Science at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, successfully […]

This blogpost is co-authored with Dr. Ladimer S. Nagurney. Since the latest war on Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, we, as many others around the globe, have been preoccupied with the unprovoked, unjustified invasion of this democratic, sovereign […]

Happy International Women’s Day! I encourage you to join me in celebrating women’s achievements, raising awareness against bias, and taking action for equality. I am going to focus on women in academia today, since the COVID-19 pandemic has been […]

Last week I was on a panel about science communication hosted by the Women in OR & Analytics Network (WORAN), a network for female academics and practitioners created by the Operational Research Society of the UK. Marco Luebbecke (@mluebbecke) […]

As we begin the New 2022 Year, it is time to take stock and to reflect on the year that has passed.2021 was a remarkable year in many respects, not the least of which was that it marked the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.  As the Center […]

This past week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Managing Disaster Risk: A Way to Sustainability Workshop organized by NEGAAS (Nepal Germany Academic Association). Speakers and participants joined virtually from multiple continents. My […]

Yesterday, I had the great honor of being the invited faculty speaker at the Chancellor's Donor Appreciation Breakfast at UMass Amherst.  This weekend was Homecoming Weekend, so that added to the festive atmosphere. Plus, this was the first time […]

I was honored to give the Omega Rho keynote lecture at the 2021 INFORMS Annual Meeting. My talked was entitled “A journey through public sector operations research.” My presentation was recorded and can be viewed on YouTube. Further reading: […]

This past week the INFORMS Annual Meeting took place in Anaheim, California with both in-person and virtual presentations. I was honored to have been invited by Professor John Carlsson from USC to present a tutorial at this conference. My tutorial […]

This morning the business meeting of the Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Society of INFORMS took place in a virtual format. There were over 100 participants, with even Norway, Germany, and Israel represented!I'd like to thank the […]

It has been exciting, and quite interesting, to be back to teaching face to face at UMass Amherst in the pandemic.When the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, I was on sabbatical for that […]

“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.” William Zinsser, On Writing Well In my previous post, I introduced an excerpt from On writing well by William Zinsser about how writing is work and we can learn […]