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, Anna Nagurney will describe how optimization and game theory are being utilized to model and solve agricultural supply chain problems subject to a spectrum of trade instruments, with a focus on food security. She will explore how to capture fresh produce quality in multitiered supply chains and how to measure resilience in order to mitigate against disruptions under conditions such as the pandemic, climate change and wars. She will also discuss how we can better promote our research contributions in order 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 holds Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science and PhD degrees from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Anna has been a Fulbrighter twice (in Austria and Italy), was a visiting professor at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and was a distinguished guest visiting professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She was 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. Anna has also held visiting appointments at MIT and at Brown University and was a science fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University 2005 to 2006. Anna was elected a fellow of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) as well as the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Network Science Society. She was the 2022 IFORS Distinguished Lecturer and the 2024 Blackett Lecturer, awarded by the Operational Research Society of the United Kingdom.

She has been recognized for her research on networks with the Kempe Prize from the University of Umea, the Faculty Award for Women from the US National Science Foundation, the University Medal from the University of Catania in Italy, the 2019 Constantin Caratheodory Prize, the 2020 Harold Larnder Prize and the 2025 President’s Award of INFORMS. Anna has also received several awards for her mentorship of students and her female leadership, such as the WORMS Award.

Her research has garnered support from the AT&T Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation through its Bellagio Center programs, the Institute for International Education and the National Science Foundation. She has given plenary and keynote talks and tutorials on five continents. She is the author/editor of 17 books, more than 240 refereed journal articles and over 50 book chapters. Anna is an active member of professional societies, including INFORMS, the OR Society, POMS, the Network Science Society and RSAI. She is a member of the board of directors of the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine and also serves on its International Academic Board.

Anna's research focuses on network systems—from transportation and logistical networks, including supply chains, to financial, economic, social networks—and on their integration, along with the Internet. She studies and models complex behaviors on networks, with the goal of providing frameworks and tools for understanding their structure, performance and resilience. She has contributed to the understanding of the Braess paradox in transportation networks and the Internet. Anna has also researches sustainability and quality issues with applications ranging from pharmaceutical and blood supply chains to perishable food products and fast fashion to humanitarian logistics. 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.