Industrial Engineering, Purdue University

The School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University invites applications from outstanding faculty candidates as part of a continuing strategy to substantially grow the School and its impact. The School has multiple openings at all faculty levels (Assistant/Associate/Full). Exceptional candidates will be considered for appointments to named and distinguished professorships.

The School of Industrial Engineering congratulates the following Graduate Students on their recent awards: Zhengbo Zhu, Baback Vaziri, Yash Gandhi, Koushik Viswanathan, Mithun Jacob and Omar El Dardiry.

In the open division, Harsh Wardhan Aggarwal was second, receiving $500 for his pitch on Sustainable Waste Remodeling. Harsh is a graduate student of Professor Steve Landry. Congratulations!

Robotics students at Purdue are trying to find new ways robots can assist people in the workplace.

In a joint venture between the schools of Engineering and Technology, students and faculty are programming a robot to pick up surgical tools and hand them to the doctor. The Baxter robot was designed by the company Rethink Robotics.

Congratulations to Professor Ji Soo Yi on his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure. The School of Industrial Engineering is delighted to have Ji Soo join the senior leadership of the school, and wish him a long and productive career at Purdue.

Michelle Jahn (Shelly), a PhD student working with Dr. Barrett Caldwell in the School of Industrial Engineering, has been selected to receive a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in the field of Human Computer Interaction.

The Study Abroad Incentive Award was announced this fall in support of Purdue Moves' aspirational goal to nearly double the number of students studying abroad by offering scholarships to make such opportunities as close to cost neutral as possible. Purdue's School of Industrial Engineering has received the first incentive award to support the design and launch of its new program in China that will help the university meet its goal of encouraging more students to study abroad.

Under the leadership of Industrial Engineering Professor Mark Lehto, the Purdue Technical Assistance Program (TAP) recently completed a successful project with the Lafayette Police Department (LPD) that significantly reduced the backlog of police reports. This was a pilot study of the high-performance government project, and served as a first step toward the LPD operational improvement initiative.

On February 21 the College of Engineering Awarded the 2014 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Awards. The Industrial Engineering Awards were presented to James D. Gibbons (BSIE 1985) President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International and Kathy Kilmer (BSIE 1992) Director of Worldwide Sales Channel Planning and Analysis for Disney Destinations. Congratulations to our Alumni!

Dr. Kathryn E. Stecke (MSIE ’77, PhD ’81), the Ashbel Smith Professor of Operations Management at the University of Texas – Dallas, was recently named a Distinguished Woman Scholar by Purdue’s Office of the Provost and the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. This award is intended to recognize the doctoral alumnae of Purdue who have made significant scholarly contributions with the hope that, in recognizing these women, an example is made and a standard set for the aspiring women scholars at Purdue today. A reception to honor Dr. Stecke and five other recipients was held in the Purdue Memorial Union on Friday, March 7.

Last December Professor Nof presented the plenary talk on “Sustainability and Resiliency
in Supply Networks” at the ICPR-Asia Pacific Region and APIEMS, Asia Pacific Industrial Engineering and Management Society conference at Cebu. The plenary and the conference on this topic were timely and in strong support of the people of the Philippines, after the recent calamities in the Philippines, especially hitting the regions near Cebu.
During his visit, Professor Nof also lectured at the University of the Philippines Dillman (Manila), where Professor Aura Matias (Purdue IE PhD) is the Dean of Engineering, and at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City. He was also happy to meet with Many Purdue School of IE alumni from the Asia Pacific Region.

AnnDrea Butler, a senior studying industrial engineering from Indianapolis. She is the treasurer of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, first vice president of the National Society of Black Engineers student organization and participates in the Purdue Minority Engineering Program. She also has worked to reinstate the Purdue chapter of the NAACP.

Professor Yih was featured in the January issue of Industrial Engineer magazine for her work in Kenya.

This Prize was named after Bernard Koopman, a founding father of military operations research. It is awarded for the outstanding publication in military operations research of the previous year. The award is accompanied by a plaque and a $500 honorarium. Congratulations to Professor Wan!

The Tompkins Professorship in Industrial Engineering -
"Industrial engineering students have unique capabilities to be leaders and to make a real difference." — Jim Tompkins

The College of Engineering at Purdue University invites applications from outstanding faculty candidates to join the Division of Construction Engineering and Management. We seek candidates with expertise in, but not limited to, one or more of the following areas of interest: Building Information Modeling, process modeling, simulation and visualization sensor networks, sustainable systems, Smart Grids, intelligent infrastructure, contract administration, decision making in complex systems, knowledge management, energy optimization, safety, System of Systems.

ASME fellows are nominated by their peers and have had ten or more years of active practice in Engineering and at least ten years of continuous membership in the ASME organization. The ASME Board of Governors confers the Fellow grade of membership on worthy candidates in the recognition of their outstanding engineering achievements.

Dr. Patrick A. Brunese, Senior Academic Administrator, School of Industrial Engineering, received the New Employee Staff Award of Excellence. Each year the College of Engineering recognizes staff for their excellent contributions. Congratulations Dr. Brunese!

Professor Barrett Caldwell has been selected a member of NASA's new Field Investigations to Enable Solar System Science and Exploration team. It is one of nine research teams in a new institute that will bring researchers together in a collaborative virtual setting to focus on questions concerning space science and human space exploration.

Cynthia Niekamp, vice president and senior vice president of coating at PPG Industries has been selected by the Purdue Old Masters Committee as a 2013 Old Masters.  She earned her bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering in 1981.

The Fall 2013 issue of Purdue Industrial Engineering IMPACT Magazine is now available. This current edition focuses on the "Happiness Factory" - taking a systems approach to health care. Along with our feature story, you can read about accessible research, the Gilbreths, our recent study abroad in Rome, new IE faculty and 2 alumni who recently made history. Happy Reading!

Dale Compton, IE Professor Emeritus, has been awarded the 2014 George E. Pake Prize "For exemplary leadership of corporate automotive R&D at a critical time for the industry and for important individual achievements in experimental solid state physics."

College of Engineering & College of Liberal Arts - As part of a university-wide cluster hire in the new focus area of “building sustainable communities,” the Colleges of Engineering (COE) and Liberal Arts (CLA) are seeking applications from outstanding candidates for a tenure-track assistant or associate professor position.