Modeling a Community of Young Researchers: On the Origins of AIROYoung

Veronica Dal Sasso	Alice Raffaele
Siemens Mobility, Italy	University of Padova, Italy

AIRO Young (AY) is the youth section of the Italian Association of Operations Research (AIRO), dedicated to fostering collaboration among students and early-career researchers in Operations Research (OR). Through annual workshops, networking events, and career development initiatives, AY creates opportunities for young researchers to advance their careers, expand their professional networks, and bridge the gap between academic and industry opportunities in the OR field.

AY has celebrated its first ten years. In February 2026, the tenth edition of the AY annual workshop (10AYW) took place in Padua, Italy. More than 120 participants from Italy and abroad attended a five-day event whose main theme was “Optimization between determinism and uncertainty”, and included several OR topics, such as routing and transportation, scheduling and timetabling, railway optimization, but also advances in mathematical programming, interplay with machine learning, and many more.

The event was composed of a one-day Ph.D. school, with four masterclasses by Marco Di Summa, Matteo Fischetti, Francesco Rinaldi, and Domenico Salvagnin (all from the University of Padua), and a four-day workshop, with 58 presentations, five sponsor talks, and four plenary lectures by Martine Labbé (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Stefan Røpke (DTU), Wolfram Wiesemann (Imperial College Business School), and Hande Yaman Paternotte (KU Leuven). Nonetheless, there have been several opportunities to discuss, connect, and expand one’s network. Moreover, there has been a special roundtable session with AY’s founding members and former board members to commemorate the milestone anniversary, reflect on AY’s evolution, discuss future steps, and share emotions while watching a celebratory video. But what is the story behind the origins and the formation of this youth chapter?

The First AY Decision Makers

Just as mathematical modeling requires optimizers, the soon-to-be AY was shaped by four individuals, depicted in Figure 1, who identified a problem and decided to tackle it with their best tools.

The first AY promoter was Alberto Santini. In 2015, Alberto was pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Bologna. Among his activities, he was also organizing a series of webinars for young researchers that he streamed online. Nowadays, this is quite common. However, at that time, it was actually a challenge, as tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom were either not even developed or were still in their early stages; for sure, they were not everyone’s bread and butter. Nevertheless, with the help of the European Association of Operations Research (EURO), Alberto was able to buy some necessary equipment, including a microphone. These webinars were highly successful, underscoring a concrete need in our community for events for young researchers.

Among the attendees of these EURO young OR researchers webinars was Veronica Dal Sasso, who began her Ph.D. in Padova in 2014. At that time, she was the only PhD student in Operations Research in Padova, not only in the Mathematics Department but also in the Engineering Department. The group in Padova was rather small, and peers were in short supply. This was the main motivation that pushed Veronica not only to present her work during the webinars, but also to attend the other webinars in person in Bologna. On this occasion, she met Alberto.

In October 2015, Lavinia Amorosi went to the Optimization @Work Ph.D. School at ZIB, in Berlin. There she met Alberto and Veronica. It was the beginning of a long-term friendship (including hosting Veronica during the first weeks of her future move to Rome).

Last but not least, Martina Fischetti met Alberto Santini at the Technical University of Denmark, where she was pursuing her Ph.D. and he was a visiting Ph.D. student. Some time later, in January 2016, she also met Veronica and Lavinia at the Winter School on Network Optimization in Estoril.

Formulating a Community Problem

Therefore, the idea of a chapter dedicated to young researchers within AIRO stemmed from these four people coming together at different academic events.

Indeed, by sharing how much they enjoyed meeting the same and new people at different conferences and Ph.D. schools, Alberto, Lavinia, Martina, and Veronica also realized that Ph.D. students and early-career researchers often lack their own funding or may not even be aware of such events. They identified a community problem: the need to promote initiative to foster networking and collaboration among young researchers who often face difficulties during their doctoral paths, and thus to share experiences with others in the same situation.

These aspects soon became their objective function to be maximized, by taking into account their own constraints, such as being just a small group of scholars. But as for the EURO young OR researchers webinars, they were supported in taking their first steps, that is, making their first decisions about what to do in practice to move from a nice idea raised while chit-chatting at some dinners to effectively creating an opportunity and engaging people to participate. A mention is needed here: Alberto’s initial proactivity, and later the development of the AY chapter, were also strongly supported by his supervisor, Daniele Vigo (University of Bologna), who helped bring the idea of a young OR community to life through valuable suggestions and assistance in securing funding.

The Root Node: The 0^th AY Workshop

Not long after the Winter School in Estoril, Alberto sent an email to Lavinia and Veronica inviting them to organize a pilot event for AY. As this idea of community met a well-sought-after need, he received only positive responses. The first-ever gathering of AIROYoungers – as we like to call AY members – was at the AIRO 46th Annual Conference in Trieste in September 2016, where Alberto suggested that Lavinia host a poster session dedicated to young researchers and organized by young researchers. There, Martina also joined what would become the founders’ team: AY was formally born.

The first official AY workshop (1AYW) was held later, in February 2017, at Sapienza University of Rome, on the topic “Emerging optimization problems in complex networks”. On the official 1AYW website, the preamble said, about AY: “Its aim is to foster collaboration between students and early-career researchers interested in the field of OR, and to provide them with new opportunities to advance their career and expand their network. It also strives to connect the demand and the offer in the OR job market, both in academia and in the industry.” By relaxing everything unnecessary, this was and still is the core problem the whole AY chapter has been addressing ever since.

Branching Since 2017

At the 1AYW, which lasted two days, there were 35 participants, 13 presentations, and two plenary lectures, delivered by Justo Puerto (University of Sevilla) and Maria Grazia Scutellà (University of Pisa). Figure 2 shows the 1AYW and 10AYW group pictures. Comparing these as well as the numbers of the 1AYW with those of the 10AYW at the beginning, we can appreciate how much AY has grown over the past ten years.

Figure 2: 1AYW and 10AYW group pictures.

Besides regularly organizing its annual workshop, AY has expanded in several directions: from creating a mailing list (currently with 325 members) to establishing a presence on major social media platforms; from organizing special sessions at Italian and international conferences to developing the AY Dissertation Award; from running webinars in collaboration with the LOG group of the Universidade Federal da Paraíba to overseeing the publication of special issues and volumes; and many more.

The growing involvement of young researchers soon led Alberto, Lavinia, Martina, and Veronica to establish an official board, initially composed of four members: two joint coordinators (Lavinia and Martina), one treasurer (Valentina Morandi), and one social media manager (Serena Fugaro), who was later joined by another social media manager/web curator (Alice Raffaele). Starting in 2021, regular elections have been held every three years thereafter. As participation and activities continued to grow, the second board (2021–2024) was expanded to six members: two joint coordinators (Lorenzo Peirano and Alice Raffaele), one treasurer (Veronica Dal Sasso), two social media managers (Serena Fugaro and Giusy Macrina), and one web curator (Michele Barbato). The current board, elected in 2024 and active until 2027, maintains the same structure and includes Matteo Cosmi and Andrea Mancuso as joint coordinators, Martina Doneda as treasurer, Sara Stoia and Marta L. Tessitore as social media managers, and Alessandro Druetto as web curator.

References

AIRO Young, 2017. Young Researchers’ Chapter of AIRO. http://www.airoyoung.airo.org. Accessed: 2026-04-28.

Amorosi, L., Fischetti, M., 2020. The New Generation of OR Enthusiasts: the AIRO Young Experiment, in: SN Operations Research Forum, Springer. p. 15.

Cavagnini, R., Dal Sasso, V., Morandi, V., Raffaele, A., 2020. How to Organize an OR Workshop: the AIROYoung Experience, in: SN Operations Research Forum, Springer. p. 34.

Italian Association of Operations Research, 1961. http://www.airo.org/. Accessed: 2026-04-28.

Raffaele, A., 2026. 10 Years of AIRO Young. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YdJoAPOO-yHCKxOzHLN5xqU2n7k1kIZN/view. Video file. Accessed: 2026-04-28.

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Lavinia Amorosi, Martina Fischetti, and Alberto Santini for reviewing this column, helping us recall and rediscover how AY was born, and offering invaluable advice. A special thank you goes to all the people, participants, and sponsors who have contributed to the AY community over all these years. Photo credit goes to Broesis for the header photo and Florendia for the footer.