Hosted by the College of Engineering and Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering

Abstract

Agricultural supply chain networks are essential to food security and are a major component of global trade. In this talk, Nagurney will describe how optimization and game theory are utilized to model and solve agricultural supply chain problems subject to a spectrum of trade instruments with a focus on food security. Additionally, she will describe how to capture fresh produce quality in multitiered supply chains measure resilience to mitigate against disruptions under conditions such as the pandemic, climate change and wars. She will also discuss how to better promote research contributions to influence policy and effect positive change.

Biography

Anna Nagurney is the Eugene M. Isenberg Chair in Integrative Studies at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the director of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, which she founded in 2001. She was a visiting professor at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and was a distinguished visiting professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Nagurney has held visiting appointments at MIT and at Brown University and was a science fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 2005-2006. She was also a visiting fellow at All Souls College at Oxford University during the 2016 Trinity Term and a summer fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard in 2017 and 2018. Nagurney was the 2022 IFORS Distinguished Lecturer and has been selected as a 2024 Blackett Lecturer by the Operational Research Society of the United Kingdom. Nagurney has been a Fulbrighter twice, in Austria and Italy. Her networks research has been recognized with the Kempe Prize from the University of Umea, the Faculty Award for Women from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the University Medal from the University of Catania in Italy, the 2019 Constantin Caratheodory Prize, and the 2020 Harold Larnder Prize. Nagurney was elected a fellow of the RSAI (Regional Science Association International) as well as INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) and the Network Science Society, among other awards. She has also been recognized with several awards for her mentorship of students and her female leadership with the WORMS Award, for example. Her research has garnered support from the AT&T Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, the Institute for International Education and the NSF. From Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Nagurney holds a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science and doctorate. She is the author and editor of 16 books, more than 230 refereed journal articles and over 50 book chapters. Nagurney is an active member of professional societies, including INFORMS, POMS and RSAI. Nagurney is a co-chair of the Kyiv School of Economics board of directors in Ukraine and also serves on its International Academic Board.

Nagurney's research focuses on network systems from transportation and logistical (including supply chains) to financial, economic, social networks and their integration, along with the internet. She studies and models complex behaviors on networks with a goal toward providing frameworks and tools for understanding their structure, performance and resilience. Nagurney has contributed to the understanding of the Braess paradox in transportation networks and the internet. She has researched sustainability and quality issues with applications ranging from fast fashion to humanitarian logistics and perishable food products to pharmaceutical and blood supply chains. She has advanced methodological tools used in game theory, network theory, equilibrium analysis and dynamical systems. She was a Co-PI on a multi-university NSF grant with UMass Amherst as the lead: “Network innovation through choice,” which was part of the Future Internet Architecture program.