Operations Research / Management Science Spring 2008 Speaker Series Announced

Wed., Jan 23, 2008
The UMass Amherst INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Speaker Series announces it's lineup for Spring 2008.

The talks take place on scheduled Fridays at the Isenberg School of Management in Room 112 from 11:00am-12:00pm, and are open to the public. The series is organized by the award-winning UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter. This is the eighth semester of this Speaker Series, which is multidisciplinary in nature.

The schedule for Spring 2008:

Dr. Denise Sumpf of the Transport Facilitation Section of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand will open up the Spring 2008 Series on February 15, 2008. The title of her presentation is, "The Development of Transport Corridors in Asia."

Professor Andrew Papachristos of the Department of Sociology at UMass Amherst will speak on February 22, 2008. The title of his presentation is, "Murder Markets: Group Dominance and the Social Contagion of Gang Homicide in Chicago."

Professor Jenna Marquard of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Amherst will deliver her lecture, "The Decision to Use an Analysis is a Decision Process in Itself: How a Business Framework Can Help Us Rigorously Study This Process," on March 7, 2008.

Professor Eitan Bachmat of the Computer Science Department at Ben Gurion University in Israel, who is presently visiting Brandeis University, will speak on "Airplane Boarding and Space-Time Geometry" on March 28, 2008.

Professor David Wypij of the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health at Harvard University will deliver his talk, "Lessons Learned from Malaria Research in Africa (Or How I Moved from Operations Research Training to a Career in Biostatistics)," on April 4, 2008.

Dr. Vamsi Chadalavada, Senior Vice President, Market and System Solutions, ISO New England, Holyoke, MA, will speak on April 11, 2008. His talk title is, "Overview of New England's Power System and Markets."

On April 18, 2008, Professor John R. Birge, the Jerry W. and Carol Lee Levin Professor of Operations Management at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago will speak on, "A News-vendor Model for Dynamic Investment and Financing Decisions: Capital Structure Implications and Empirical Results."

Click here for more detailed information on the series.

Click here for information on the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter and its other activities.

Support for this series is provided by the Isenberg School, the Department of Finance and Operations Management, the John F. Smith Memorial Fund, and INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences).

For questions, please contact Ms. Trisha Woolley, twoolley@som.umass.edu the Speaker Series Coordinator for 2007-2008. The faculty advisor is Anna Nagurney, the John F. Smith Memorial Professor.