Past week, I travelled to Seattle to attend #IISE Annual Conference and Expo. This is the largest meeting of industrial and systems engineers in the world, and I had been involved with the Sustainable Development Division for the last 10+ years.

It was the first in person conference, I attended prior to the Pandemic. I flew with #AlaskaAirlines from Saint Louis, MO to Seattle, WA with a direct flight. Wifi was good along with a large group of movie, etc. selections, while I like to read or rest during flights. Overall, the flight was comfortable back and forth despite being 3+ hours long. I packed small and went with 1 back pack and 1 small bag, no luggage. I try to learn and practice as much as I can on minimalism, which is I believe crucial for a happy and calm life. What do you think about minimalism? [Feel free to comment below]

I keep my conference activities mixed with leisure things like wondering around, meeting new people, and catching up with oldies but goodies friends.

Town Hall Meeting

I had the opportunity to meet many colleagues from #SustainableDevelopment Division at Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. I stepped down from President role of Sustainable Development Division after a year of happy and fun service experience. We had such a good turn out at the conference despite being the first in person meeting after a couple of years. People seemed to be really missed the in person meetings. I had the pleasure to announce the best paper (Stephanie González), best student paper (Mehrsa Khaleghi), and best sustainable development service (Massachusetts Port Authority (MASSPORT) awards.

A cool coffee shop in downtown Seattle! I discovered this while walking on the streets of downtown. It is “Top Pot Doughnuts“. Their doughnuts are otherworldly delicious! And, sure, you will get a great coffee when you are in Seattle. One of my dream todo is to open a book coffee shop like this, so inspiring!

I gave a talk about the research project, “Layer Analysis of U.S. Manufacturing and its Global Supply Chains: A Multi-Region Input-Output Analysis Approach” lead by two of my former graduate research assistants Durva Joshi and Meet Panchal. [Link to the presentation] I shared our initial results and had some more work to do, I am in the look out to recruit research assistants and/or find collaborators to move these projects further. Reach out if you are interested in collaborating!

More importantly, in almost every talk I gave about sustainability, I share the slide of CO2 PPM trend as you see below in the first slide of talk. The safety level is 350 and see where we are at based on NASA’s analysis. I pause and let people contemplate, to me this is like a ritual now… I go back and see what I can do myself in combating climate change, educating and helping with the awareness. What do you think about climate change?

On the last day, I had the opportunity to moderate the session entitled “UN SDG 13 – Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” on Tuesday May 24 – 12:30 PM to 1:50 PM block, which had four talks.

I got to see my old friend and colleague Dr. Can (John) Celikbilek, PhD and other colleagues, my former professors from Ohio University including Dr. Dusan Sormaz [Happy Retirement Dr.!]. Anthony’s is a great sea food place – check out the salmon, when you are there especially on May-June period, according to my local friend John [Forza Inter bud!]

Lastly, I had the pleasure to represent Lindenwood University Robert W. Plaster College of Business and Entrepreneurship [GO LIONS]!

Funny and great fact: after starting at Lindenwood as of 2022, both my university’s and my fav soccer team’s (Galatasaray) mascot became Lion! Cant be happier 🙂 [Sari, Kirmizi, En Buyuk Cimbom!]

Well, I am now fully recharged and ready for the summer! See you on the next post…