The Supernetworks Laboratory for Computation and Visualization is part of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It advances research in and the application of network-based decision-making and support tools for a wide spectrum of applications.  Recent projects have focused on:

• The integration of labor into supply chain networks, in both optimization and game theory contexts, with inspiration from the COVID-19 pandemic;
• The modeling, analysis, and solution of supply chain network and related trade models with the inclusion of various policy instruments such as tariffs and quotas;
• Game theory models for disaster relief with applications ranging from natural disasters to the COVID-19 pandemic with shortages of PPEs and medical supplies;
• An EAGER NSF grant on Collaborative Research: Enabling Economic Policies in Software-Defined Internet Exchange Points;
• Our multi-university NSF-funded project: Network Innovation Through Choice, under which we investigated the development of an economy plane for the Internet, accompanied by rigorous game theory models for the analysis of competitive behavior among service providers and network providers, along with duration-based contracts on different time-scales;
• The construction of a variety of supply chain network models under product perishability with applications ranging from food and pharmaceuticals to fast fashion;
• The development of models and algorithms for supply chain competition in quality with emphasis on information, asymmetry, product differentiation, and outsourcing;
• Network efficiency/performance measurement and vulnerability and robustness analysis with applications to the security of critical infrastructure networks (transportation, telecommunication, supply chain, electric power, financial, etc.), along with the importance identification and ranking of network components (nodes and links);
• Dynamic (time-dependent) networks, including congested transportation networks, electric power grids, supply chains, financial networks, and the Internet;
• Mergers and acquisitions of multiproduct firms and oligopolistic firms;
• Humanitarian logistics;
• Sustainable transportation networks and supply chains, along with congestion pricing;
• Electric power generation, distribution, and consumption modeling along with environmental and energy impacts with optimal policies from carbon taxes to multipollutant permit trading schemes;
  
• Optimization of Internet-based pricing and advertising strategies and the explanation of  related paradoxes;
• Multitiered supply chain networks (including global ones) in an environment of risk and uncertainty and with electronic commerce;
• Financial networks with intermediation, electronic transactions,  and risk management;
• Integrated social networks with supply chains and financial networks;
  
• Management of knowledge intensive dynamic systems with applications to national security;
• Modeling the dynamics of human interactions and their interactions with technologically-based network systems;
• Electronic recycling (e-cycling) networks and other environmental supply chains. 
  

We provide rigorous solutions to network-based, complex decision-making problems in which there may be several (or many) interacting decision-makers. Our focus is on displaying the solutions in different formats including visual ones to gain a greater understanding of the various interactions between humans and their impacts on critical network systems that underly our societies and economies.

Methodological advances have included the development of double-layered  dynamics for the unification of projected dynamical systems and evolutionary variational inequalities. We have also advanced Generalized Nash Equilibrium aaplications in both profit and nonprofit settings and also with stochastic elements. In addition, we have established that both electric power generation and distribution networks as well as financial networks can be reformulated and solved as transportation network problems, thus, resolving hypotheses posed over 50 years ago! We have also shown that the time-dependent Braess paradox can be modeled and solved as an evolutionary variational inequality. We have also developed a network efficiency/performance measure that captures:  demands, flows, costs, and behavior to accurately assess the impact of the removal of various network components and their impact on the network. The measure has been applied to congested networks such as transportation networks, as well as to financial networks, electric power networks, as well as to the Internet, and has major implications for vulnerability analysis and security.

The Supernetworks Laboratory consists of a conference area in which researchers, practitioners, guests, and visitors can meet to discuss problems and solutions, as well as a work area for center associates. Center Associates work on state-of-the art computers and also collaborate virtually with others through the Virtual Center for Supernetworks. Numerous journals and books on network themes are available in the lab along with papers authored by the associates as well as books.  See  Downloadable Articles.

Support for the Virtual Center and the Supernetworks Laboratory has been provided by the National Science Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the Advanced Cyber Security Center, as well as the John F. Smith Memorial Foundation at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as the Isenberg School of Management. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Since the establishment of the Supernetworks Laboratory in 2003, it has been the venue for:

• the planning and organization of the Dynamics of Disasters conferences, with colleagues from the University of Florida and Wilfrid Laurier University, held in Kalamata, Greece in 2015, 2017, and 2019, along with the editing of the conference proceedings. The conference was virtual in 2021.
• the hosting of various speakers in the UMass Amherst INFORMS Speakers Series. Student membersof the Chapter also use the facility for interviews of speakers, which are then posted on the UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter youtube channel.
• the planning of the Rockefeller Foundation Conference at the Bellagio Center on Lake Como, Italy on "Humanitarian Logistics: Networks for Africa," organized by Professor Anna Nagurney,
• preparations for the Fulbright Senior Specialist grant awarded to Professor Anna Nagurney which took place at the University of Catania in Italy in March 2008,
• the planning and co-organization with Professor David Parkes of Harvard University of the Dynamic Networks Exploratory Seminar held at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University,
• the visit of Professor Dietrich Braess who discovered the Braess paradox in which the addition of a road/link to a transportation network can make everyone worse off in terms of travel time/cost,
• the visit of Professor Werner Rothengatter from the University of Karlsruhe, a leader in transportation and project management, in whose honor a minisymposium was held,
  
• a mini-workshop on the Management of Knowledge Intensive Systems,
• a university-wide Open House,
• a TV interview of the Supernetworks Team which aired on the Steve Lappas Show,
• interviews of members of the supernetwork team conducted by journalists; coverage has included that by bloomberg.com, NetworkWorld, ComputerWorld, and ITWorld, National Public Radio (NPR), as well as other media outlets,
  
• visits from academics from the US and Europe,
• visits from representatives of logistics companies and financial services,
• meetings with industrial liaison and economic development experts from the University of Massachusetts,
• a visit by a researcher preparing a documentary on electronic recycling,
• preparation for a Cybersecurity Workshop held at the Sloan School at MIT in Fall 2014, and
  
• the homebase for the development of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, and its well-recognized Speaker Series, which has brought outstanding researchers and practitioners to the Isenberg School of Management.

Research conducted by the Center Associates has been recognized by a Visiting Fellowship at Oxford University, a Visiting Professorship at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, a Science Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, by the AT&T Foundation through two Industrial Ecology awards, by the National Science Foundation through its sustained support, by the Rockefeller Foundation through its Bellagio Center Program, and by several distinctions including:  a SUNY Chancellor's Award,  President’s Award, and two Provost’s Awards, a Chow Fellowship, as well as a Distinguished Chaired Fulbright Award and a Fulbright Senior Specialist Award, plus a Regional Science Association International (RSAI) Fellow Award and an INFORMS Fellows Award.

In addition, Doctoral Student Center Associates have been the recipients of multiple awards, including the Isenberg Scholar Award, the Outstanding Doctoral Student Researcher Award, and the Outstanding Doctoral Student Teaching Award.

Activities conducted through the Supernetworks Laboratory have been also recognized by an INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Moving Spirit Award given to Professor Anna Nagurney and the Judith B. Liebman Award given to Center Associate Dr. Tina Wakolbinger and to Center Associate Dr. Amir H. Masoumi.

Graduate students who have worked in the Supernetworks Lab have assumed prominent positions at such institutions as the University of Connecticut, Worcester Polytechinic Institute, the University of Portland, Manhattan College, the Penn State University system, Texas Wesleyan University, the University of Sydney in Australia, York University in Canada, and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Media coverage of the Center and  the Supernetworks Laboratory can be found at Media.

Please see the Center Associates page of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks for individual curriculum vitae with additional information. 

If you are interested in paying a visit to the Supernetworks Laboratory and/or in partnering with the Center and Lab, please, contact the Director, Anna Nagurney, the Eugene M. Isenberg Chair in Integrative Studies: nagurney@isenberg.umass.edu.