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!

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.

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.

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.

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.