IIE’s Society for Health Systems (SHS) has elected Ashley Benedict, systems redesign coordinator at VA Sunshine Healthcare Network, as its new president-elect.

Research led by Gary Cheng, associate professor of industrial engineering, is breaking new ground in nanomanufacturing. Central to his work is the use of a pulsing laser to induce a shockwave inside a multilayered film topped with a glass sheet. In the latest results, researchers showed how to create large patterns of three-dimensional nanoshapes from metal sheets. The concept represents a potential manufacturing approach to inexpensively mass producing of plasmonic metamaterials for advanced technologies.

A multidisciplinary Purdue engineering team won third place on February 23 in the Gold Division of the 29th annual Burton D. Morgan Business Plan Competition. The team was led by mechanical engineering doctoral student Jeffrey Ackerman, and included the lead inventor, Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Brad Duerstock, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Justin Seipel, and Purdue alumna Li Hwa Chong.

Associate Professor C. Robert Kenley has been elected as an International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Fellow.

Associate Professor Juan Wachs has received a Fulbright Scholar grant from the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, as part of an exchange program between the governments of the U.S. and Argentina. His project is entitled “Using Attention Modeling and Analysis to Understand Gestures Interaction”.

A team of more than 50 Purdue engineering and technology students helped create the Visiting Our Solar System (VOSS) interactive exhibit at Purdue’s Discovery Park. Junior Anna Tatara was the only industrial engineering student on the team.

Congratulations to alumna Patti Poppe (BSIE 1989, MSIE 1991) on her recent promotion to President and CEO of CMS Energy, effective July 1, 2016.

This semester, about 15 IE undergrads are interning with Tesla Motors, United Airlines, Disney, and other companies.

The Seattle Times recently quoted Assistant Professor Roshanak Nateghi’s article “Critical Assessment of the Foundations of Power Transmission and Distribution Reliability Metrics and Standards”.

Associate Professor Aldo Scutari has received several awards and grants in the past few months.

Nine IE students are studying abroad this semester in places as diverse as Sweden, Colombia, Spain, Australia and China, and eight more will study abroad on various short-term Spring Break programs.

A student team from Purdue University competed in the inaugural SpaceX Hyperloop pod competition at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, Jan. 29-30. Senior IE student Adrienne Lavelle participated. Purdue’s team was one of over 120 teams from 27 countries and 20 U.S. states.

Assistant Professor Ramses Martinez came up with a novel way for students to learn about manufacturing processes. For his IE 370 Manufacturing Processes class, Martinez assigned students to learn new concepts and explain them to fellow students – by video. Martinez posts the videos on a YouTube channel.

Associate Professor Juan Wachs, with a team of Purdue University and Indiana University School of Medicine researchers, recently published a journal paper entitled "Medical telementoring using an augmented reality transparent display" in the journal Surgery.

IE undergrads not only get a great education and do undergraduate research, but have opportunities to do real-world internships in areas they’re interested in.