UMass INFORMS Speaker Series: 2022 Spring Schedule

Spring is almost here, and for our Student Chapter this means that it is time to share with you our brilliant Speaker Series line-up for the new semester. With our Faculty Advisor, Professor Anna Nagurney, we will be welcoming another series of prestigious speakers, and we would love to have you join us.

Below you can find the details and the RSVP link for each event. After registering for an event through the link provided, you will receive a calendar invite with the meeting link.

We thank the OIM Department for supporting this series. We hope you can join us as our guest speakers introduce us to a series of fascinating ORMS research ideas and applications!

Friday, February 18: Does Parking Matter? The Impact of Search Time for Parking on Last-Mile Delivery Optimization

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/ register/tJ0qdu6tqTgqE9zFE-R-34DRDLo_4B1sBRb5

Abstract:
Parking is a necessary component of traditional last-mile delivery practices, but finding parking can be difficult. Yet, the routing literature largely does not account for such need. In this talk, Dr. Campbell addresses the problem of finding parking through the Capacitated Delivery Problem with Parking (CDPP). Unlike other models in the literature, the CDPP accounts for the search time for parking in the objective and minimizes the completion time of the delivery tour. Computational experiments show that parking matters in last-mile delivery optimization The CDPP outperforms industry practice and models in the literature showing the greatest advantage when the search time for parking is high.

Speaker Bio:
Ann Melissa Campbell is the Department Executive Officer of the Department of Business Analytics and Clement T. and Sylvia H. Hanson Family Chair in Manufacturing Productivity at the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.  She joined the University of Iowa after receiving her Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Her research focuses on freight transportation, especially on problems related to new and emerging business models.  She works on problems related to inventory routing, consumer direct delivery, route planning using stochastic information, and logistics planning for disaster relief.   She publishes in journals such as Transportation Science and Networks. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and serves as an Area Editor for Transportation Science.  She led the department’s efforts to win the 2021 INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize for excellence in analytics education.

Friday, March 04: COVID-19 Impacts on Public Transportation

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0od-Cqqz8sHdGEBsz3InF2R_2F07v3uq03

Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has spread globally; however, the risk of contracting COVID-19 on public transportation and its role in local spread remains unclear. Essential workers who are transit-dependent tend to be from low-income and minority populations and are faced with the risk of contracting COVID-19 each time they take a bus. In this talk, Dr. Nock presents a study that investigates bus ridership from April to September of 2020 and the risk of contracting COVID-19 on the bus by combining a transportation data analysis and an epidemiological model of COVID-19 risk. A cost-benefit analysis reveals that dispatching autonomous vehicles or deploying longer buses rather than allowing crowding have the lowest societal costs.

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Destenie Nock is a leader in energy justice and sustainable energy transition trade-off analysis. In her role as an Assistant Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE), and Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) she creates optimization and decision analysis tools which evaluate the sustainability, equity, and reliability of electricity and transportation systems in the US and Sub-Saharan Africa.  Dr. Nock holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and an Offshore Wind Energy IGERT Fellow. She earned a MSc in Leadership for Sustainable Development at Queen’s University of Belfast, and two BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Applied Math at North Carolina A&T State University.  She is the creator of the Black Electricity Blog site which posts articles about graduate and undergraduate advice, and research updates in energy and sustainability.  

 Friday, April 08: Does Transportation Mean Transplantation? Impact of New Airline Routes on Sharing of Cadaveric Kidneys

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYuf-6spzMvEtLiiC_t6DjjAiBL69t8NDUH

Abstract:
Every year, nearly 5,000 patients die while waiting for kidney transplants, and yet an estimated 3,500 procured kidneys are discarded. Although numerous policy initiatives are aimed at broadening organ pooling, they rarely account for a key friction—efficient airline transportation, ideally direct flights, is necessary for long-distance sharing, because of the time-sensitive nature of kidney transplantation. In this talk, Dr. Dai presents the effect of introducing new airline routes on broader kidney sharing. His work merges the U.S. airline transportation and kidney transplantation data sets, to create a unique sample tracking (1) the evolution of airline routes connecting all the U.S. airports and (2) kidney transplants between donors and recipients connected by these airports. 
The complete paper is available at https://bit.ly/tr-tx

Speaker Bio:
Tinglong Dai is a Professor of Operations Management and Business Analytics at Johns Hopkins University. He serves on the leadership team of the Hopkins Business of Health Initiative and the executive committee of the Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science. As a leading expert in healthcare analytics, Dr. Dai has been quoted hundreds of times in the media, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, New York Times, NPR, PBS, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. In 2021, Poets & Quants named him one of the World’s Best 40 Under 40 Business School Professors. 
Dr. Dai’s research interests span across healthcare, marketing-operations interfaces, and human-AI interaction. His work has been published in leading journals such as Management Science, M&SOM, Marketing Science, and Operations Research, and has been recognized by Johns Hopkins Discovery Award, INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award, POMS Best Healthcare Paper Award, and Wickham Skinner Early Career Award. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for M&SOM and Health Care Management Science, and as a Senior Editor of Production and Operations Management. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a PhD in Operations Management and Robotics in 2013.

Friday, April 29: Making an Impact: It’s Math and Psychology

Register in advance for this Zoom meeting:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/meeting/register/ tJEkcu6sqDMtHtJKIb7yF56GClWBnLjgHiZp

Abstract:
Turning data into a business advantage through Advanced Analytics is the goal of most organizations. The availability of data, along with expanding computing power and tools, opens the door to businesses gaining competitive advantage through analytical processes and skill.
When Jack Levis was a Senior Director for UPS, he saw the reality of this promise firsthand.  His team created advanced tools and algorithms that reduced operating cost in excess of $500M annually while improving customer service. But there is much more to making an impact than just creating advanced tools and algorithms.  Organization’s change is also essential.
Jack Levis, retired senior director of engineering at UPS, will share his experiences and best practices to compete with analytics, requiring organizational support in the form of data, tools, and senior management commitment.  

Speaker Bio:
Jack Levis is a retired UPS Senior Director of Industrial Engineering.  He was responsible for the development of operational technology solutions.  These solutions required advanced analytics to reengineer processes to streamline the business and maximize productivity. He has been the business owner and process designer for UPS’ Package Flow Technology suite of systems which includes its award-winning delivery optimization, ORION (On Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation).  These tools have been a breakthrough change for UPS, resulting in a reduction of 185 million miles driven each year and reducing costs by $350M to $400M per year.
Mr. Levis is a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS), receiving their prestigious Kimball Medal and the President’s Award. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, from California State University Northridge, and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.