21st Century Human Development

Recognized as one of the most pressing challenges of our time, our researchers in 21st Century Human Development address the basic needs of all people: food, housing, health care, emergency response, and education.

The Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering aims to significantly enhance the wellbeing and quality of life for people worldwide through operations and logistics, human factors engineering, optimization, and data science. We strive to foster quality, safety and security, accessibility and equity for all.

Join us as you take your next giant leap to help others and make societal impacts.

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Team

Team

Team Leaders

Brandon Pitts

Elliott Sigal Rising Star Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Faculty Associate, Center on Aging and the Life Course
Research Interests

Multimodal sensing to support physical, physiological, cognitive, and social health, well-being, and quality of life.

Evaluation of smart home technologies for independent living of aging populations.

Human-automation/AI interaction and human systems integration for older adults.

Accessibility and human-centered universal design for personal mobility and transportation.

Yuehwern Yih

Tompkins Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Director of Smart Systems and Operations Laboratory;
Director of LASER PULSE Consortium
Research Interests

Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration with NGOs and healthcare providers

Gap identification in operations and systems design: supply chain, care delivery, medication adherence and safety, global health

System modeling and predictive models (simulation-based, statistics-based, AI-based)

Real-time decision making and strategies for risk mitigation

Patient flow and capacity management for in-patient and out-patient care

Risk stratification for re-admissions, longer length of stays

Interactions of human, technologies, and information – technology adoption, care quality and safety in medication administration, discharge process, re-admission

Vancomycin dosing management for pediatric patients

ML approach to severity score for pneumonia

Food distribution for HIV patients to improve anti-viral treatment outcomes in Kenya

Demand sensing for medical supply chains to improve maternal/child health in Uganda

NICU spatial furniture design and layout design in Malawi

Team Members

Vaneet Aggarwal

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Supervised learning

Reinforcement Learning

Large Language Models

Quantum Machine Learning

Applications in Networking, Transportation, Robotics, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Biomedical, and Climate

Stephan Biller

Harold T. Amrine Distinguished Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business Director of Dauch Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises
Research Interests

Digital-Industrial Strategy, Business and Financial Models

Resilient and Sustainable Manufacturing & Supply Chains

Production Systems, Operations Management, Enterprise Systems

Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, AIoT

Digital transformation, Digital Twins

Energy Transition & Transportation

Innovation Commercialization & Go-to-Market @Scale

Hua Cai

Thomas and Jane Schmidt Rising Star Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with Environmental & Ecological Engineering
Research Interests

Understanding the link between urban form and human health

Assessing the “mobility option” equity in Indiana

AI-based TA tool “Arthur” to enhance student learning

Barrett Caldwell

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment in Aeronautics & Astronautics
Research Interests

Search and Rescue agent collaboration and task coordination

Wearable sensors for healthcare (sleep management)

Radiation oncology

Humanitarian assistance activities

Joaquín Goñi Cortes

Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests

Data driven methods with structural and function

Understanding Human brain structure and function

Collaborations exploring schizophrenia, Alzheimers, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Souvik Dhara

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Applied Probability

Inference and Algorithms on Networks

Random Graphs

Stochastic Processes

Bradley Duerstock

Professor of Practice, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests

Wearable physiological sensors for monitoring dysautonomia

Development of assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

Human-centered design of home and workspaces including STEM labs

Vincent Duffy

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment in Aeronautics & Astronautics
Research Interests

Digital human modeling

Safety engineering

Work methods and measurement

Ergonomics

Behzad Esmaeili

Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with Civil Engineering
Research Interests

Construction safety

Risk management

Decision making

Zachary Hass

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with School of Nursing
Research Interests

Projecting long-term services and supports needs in Minnesota

Improving data systems in Montana Adult Protective Services

Evaluation of a community coalition on opioid use disorder

Syed Ahmad Helmi

Professor of Practice, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Operations and Supply Chain Strategy

Smart Manufacturing and Process Optimization

Digital Twin and Predictive Simulation (Discrete Events and System Dynamics)

Engineering Learning Innovation and Pedagogy

Susan Hunter

Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Methods for simulation optimization

Multi-objective simulation optimization

Two-stage multi-objective linear programs (e.g. disaster planning)

Cost-effectiveness analysis

Tugba Karabiyik

Lecturer
Research Interests

Reem Khir

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Developing optimization-based technology for dynamic decision making

Enhancing and streamlining operations using real-time analytics

Supporting planner-in-the-loop environments

Risk analysis of critical networks such as food supply chains

Transportation systems design trading off economic, environmental, and social goals

System Modeling, Robust & Stochastic Optimization, Machine Learning for Optimization

Nan Kong

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Stochastic integer programming/Markov decision processes

Resource allocation and scheduling in healthcare and supply chains

Disease prevention/control modeling

Electronic health record data analysis

Seokcheon Lee

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

EMS logistics – ambulance dispatching, relocation, collaboration

Humanitarian logistics – routing with non-routineness, flying warehouses

Mark Lehto

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Human Factors

Safety engineering

Hazard Communication and Decision Support Systems

Ramses Martinez

Hall Family Rising Star Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Joint Appointment with Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests

Nanofabrication

Soft Robotics

Flexible Electronics

Wearable and Implantable Devices

Smart/Programmable Materials

Nagabhushana Prabhu

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Nonlinear optimization and its applications

Eigenvalue computation of large sparse matrices

Computational oncology

Soliton physics

Mohamad Salama

Visiting Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Supply Chain Network Design and Management

Logistics with drones and automated vehicles

Public transportation network design

Disaster Management

Resilient Community to Disruptions

Pramiti Sarker

Visiting Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Learning models for performance prediction in assembly lines

Ergonomics for worker safety and productivity

Product usability testing for market sustainability

Biomechanical modeling and data collection

April Savoy

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Health information technology

Cognitive systems engineering

Situation awareness

Usability

Health information exchange

Clinical decision-making

Yu She

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Robotics

Mechanism Design

Tactile Perception

Young-Jun Son

James J. Solberg Head;
Ransburg Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Real-time Control of Smart Factories via Digital Twin

Modeling Human Decision-Making (BDI Model)

Multi-paradigm Simulations (agent, discrete event, VR)

Modeling and Control in Emergency, Healthcare, UAVs

Mario Ventresca

Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Modeling pandemic disease spread (e.g., Zika, COVID-19)

Antigenically variable pathogens (e.g., Influenza H3N2)

Equity-focused vaccination strategy optimization

Social media impact on health policy

ML in public health policy discovery

fMRI network analysis for cognitive decline

Network science, OR, stochastic modeling, ML

Juan Wachs

James H. and Barbara H. Greene Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Multimodal Robotic Co-Workers in the OR

Autonomous, Unmanned Medical Robots

Skill Augmentation Robotics

AI-based Mentoring Systems

Engineering Education Accessibility

Wenzhuo Wu

Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Wearable multimodal sensors for health monitoring

Sensors for performance assessment

Nanotechnology for clean water and power resiliency

Miaolan Xie

Incoming Faculty, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering (Fall 2025)
Research Interests

Stochastic Optimization

Data Science

Nonlinear Optimization

Machine Learning

Algorithms

Healthcare Applications

Denny Yu

Associate Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering;
Courtesy Appointment in Health Sciences
Research Interests

Adaptive human-robot interaction for surgery performance

Real-time workload sensing

Zhe Zhang

Assistant Professor, Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering
Research Interests

Stochastic Optimization

Distributed Optimization

Machine Learning

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