The Box Medal is named after George Box, the late British-American statistician who is considered one of the greatest statistical minds of our time. Box was extremely influential on Wu’s work during his formative years as a young academic at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where Box was also a professor.

In a 2015 interview with Professor Hugh Chapman (Acadia University) and Professor Roshan Joseph (ISyE), Wu affirmed that Box was a tremendous influence: “[Box] was a great scholar and a great lecturer. His opinions and passion for work were contagious … I respected him a lot.”

According to the ENBIS website, the Box Medal honors the legacy of George Box and is awarded each year to “an extraordinary statistician who has remarkably contributed with his work to the development and the application of statistical methods in European business and industry.”

The ENBIS press release announcing Wu as this year’s Box Medal recipient stated that “with the medal, the link between two great statisticians is strengthened even further.”

The press release also specified that Wu was chosen for his many contributions to the study of statistics, as well as “his ability to clearly explain complex concepts … and for systematically passing on his knowledge.” Wu has supervised 45 Ph.D. students in the course of his career, many of whom are active researchers in the statistical sciences.

Wu will accept the Box Medal at the ENBIS conference, held from September 9-14, 2017, in Naples, Italy. While there, he will also deliver a keynote speech on September 12, 2017.   

About Jeff Wu

Wu earned a bachelor of science in mathematics from National Taiwan University in 1971, and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. He has been a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of Waterloo; the University of Michigan; and currently is the Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics and professor in ISyE.

He is known for his work on the convergence of the EM algorithm; resampling methods; nonlinear least squares; sensitivity testing and industrial statistics, including design of experiments, robust parameter design and computer experiments; and has been credited for coining the term “data science” as early as 1997.

Wu has received several awards, including the COPSS Presidents’ Award (1987), the Shewhart Medal (2008), the R. A. Fisher Lectureship (2011), and the Deming Lecturer Award (2012). He is an elected member of Academia Sinica (2000) and the National Academy of Engineering (2004), and has received many other awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo.

He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed articles and two books. He was the second editor of Statistica Sinica.

In announcing Nemirovski’s election to the prestigious organization, the NAE commended him for his work in “developing efficient algorithms for large-scale convex optimization problems.”

Nemirovski was the only professor from Georgia Tech to be chosen for the honor this year.

“Arkadi is a world-renowned leader in his field and has profoundly influenced generations in the areas of discrete and continuous optimization. This highest of distinctions reflects his unparalleled contributions to convex optimization, which have shaped the field,” said Edwin Romeijn, ISyE’s H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair. “Arkadi represents the best of the Stewart School’s deep, longstanding emphasis on theoretical research. We couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions bestowed on an engineer. According to the NAE, membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

“I am delighted that Arkadi’s extraordinary career has been richly rewarded with induction into the National Academy of Engineering,” said Gary S. May, dean and Southern Company Chair, College of Engineering. “He has been a pioneer in his field, and this honor is testament to his research work and accomplishments.”

Nemirovski earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics (1974) from Moscow State University; his Doctor of Sciences in Mathematics (1990) from the Supreme Attestation Board at the USSR Council of Ministers; and his Doctor of Mathematics (Honoris Causa) from the University of Waterloo, Canada (2009). He joined ISyE in 2005.

Upon hearing the news of his NAE election, Nemirovski said, “I am extremely lucky and happy to be a member of our fantastic ISyE community, and I am greatly indebted to my colleagues for 12 years of a wonderful working experience.”

Nemirovski and other newly elected members will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE’s annual meeting on October 8, 2017, in Washington, D.C.

Nemirovski joins other ISyE faculty who are already members of the NAE, including A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Institute Professor George Nemhauser, Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics Jeff Wu, Regent’s Professor Emeritus H. Donald Ratliff, Professor Emeritus William Rouse, and Professor Emeritus Ellis Johnson.

In addition to being a lifelong fan of the Yellow Jackets, Rockwell also nurtured a passion for “the beautiful game” – soccer – eventually moving from player to refereeing while a student at Tech and now on the professional level for Major League Soccer (MLS) games. He has been a referee for MLS for 12 years and a total of over 230 games. He is also one of nine people on the FIFA Assistant Referee list in the U.S. – a list he’s been on for 10 years – and is hoping to be considered as a referee for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

In this Q-&-A, Rockwell discusses his lifetime love for soccer, his refereeing career, and even how he uses his ISyE skills as a ref.

Refereeing for MLS matches is your passionate hobby, but tell us about your day job. Do you use your ISyE skills in your current work?

I started off working in manufacturing in Cartersville, Georgia. I worked as a nightshift supervisor, then transitioned to the plant industrial engineer. I worked eight years in manufacturing, then decided to take a corporate position in Scottsdale, Arizona. I am now the head of corporate audit for North and South America for my company.

I use my ISyE skills extensively in my position. Most of my audits are manufacturing based, as we look to ensure our factories are working in a safe and efficient environment. The human-machine factors, the attention to ergonomics, and the statistical analysis are skills I continue to use as I visit each new factory.

One key aspect has been communication. I find ISyE graduates from Georgia Tech are better equipped to make presentations and communicate with top management in the business world than other fields. This ability to communicate has been a huge asset for my career progression.

You have played or refereed soccer for what seems like most of your life. How early in your life did the soccer bug bite you?

I have been playing since I was seven years old. I was too late to sign up for American football, so my parents enrolled me in soccer. The team aspect and my love for “the beautiful game” have continued to fuel my passion for the game.

You played soccer for a couple of years on the club level at Georgia Tech, then switched to refereeing, where you’ve been ever since. Why the transition?

I transitioned because I needed to pay my tuition. I knew I would never get paid as a player, but I was doing pretty good refereeing on the side. I graduated from Georgia Tech with almost no outstanding debt and was able to pay for most of my tuition, meals, and residence through the money I saved refereeing soccer. But it was not easy. As my friends will tell you, I missed weekend activities and Friday night parties because I was on the field somewhere refereeing soccer.

You recently came back to Atlanta and refereed the inaugural Atlanta United game at Bobby Dodd Stadium. What was that experience like?

I could not wipe the smile off my face. I had a ton of friends and family in the stands which made it special. I think the coolest thing about that game is I asked at least 20 friends if they could go, and their response was, “We already have tickets to the game.”

I thought I would be much more nervous during the game, but once the whistle blew to start the match, it was time to go to work. It was game mode for me. Our referee team got the big calls right, so this made for a good celebration after the game.

Do you ever find that you’re able to apply your ISyE skills to being a soccer ref?

My professors in ISyE always taught strict attention to detail. This is a huge asset to have as an MLS soccer referee. After games, I analyze the video and watch my performance frame-by-frame to see where I can improve. Another fundamental of ISyE is root cause analysis: If I made an error, what is the root cause of this error? For example, was I out of position? Was I focused on the player instead of the ball? Was I blocked from seeing the ball?

Another key aspect is time management. Georgia Tech taught me about time management. As a student, I was very involved in student government, my fraternity, and other organizations. All this was on top of attending class, my ISyE project work, studying for finals, and refereeing soccer at nights and weekends to pay my bills. As a working professional, I have used these time management skills to juggle my personal life, my career, and my soccer refereeing. 

What has been your most thrilling soccer experience to date?

The game at Bobby Dodd was definitely up there, being at home – and in front of a sold-out crowd.

I also had a game last year in Toronto that I will never forget. It was a semi-final playoff game between Toronto and Montreal – a big rivalry – that was sold out with 36,000 people in attendance. Seven goals were scored during the game, which ended up going into extra time. As a referee team, we got all the big calls right, and after the game, there were no negative comments about the referees – only that it was one of the greatest playoff games in MLS history for all the right reasons.

To find a way to alleviate this problem, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense, is hosting the second Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, or SC2. The goal of the challenge is to increase the possibility of access to Wi-Fi for both military and civilian wireless devices. According to the SC2 website, this will be accomplished when “radio networks will autonomously collaborate and reason about how to share the RF spectrum, avoiding interference, and jointly exploiting opportunities to achieve the most efficient use of the available spectrum.” The challenge is designed to encourage sharing between networks through a combination of machine learning and communications engineering.

Enter Georgia Tech Agile Communication Architectures, one of 30 teams selected to participate in SC2. Spearheaded by two Georgia Tech professors – Matthieu Bloch, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Sebastian Pokutta, David M. McKenney Family Associate Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) – the team comprises graduate students from both schools and comes out of the interdisciplinary Center for Machine Learning at Georgia Tech (ML@GT). The team is self-funded, but Bloch and Pokutta have received some support from the National Science Foundation in the form of an EAGER grant in the amount of $99,877, which will support the team’s early efforts.

Describing the Georgia Tech team’s approach to the spectrum challenge, Bloch said, “Here at Tech, we have expertise in both communications engineering and machine learning, and [the solution] that DARPA is looking for is something that integrates the two. The future of communication – for them – has to go through the integration of machine learning and intelligence, and that was a strength we were able to advertise to DARPA. They were happy with our approach because we were proposing an integrated solution from the beginning.”

In terms of solving the challenge through machine learning, Pokutta said, “If you look at machine learning in general, it’s a very powerful technique. At the same time, it’s probably overhyped. You have to create tangible value: applying it to real-world problems and solving them to have impact. It’s like having a hammer. A hammer is a great tool, but if you have nothing to apply it to, it’s completely worthless.”

In other words, the goal of the challenge is collaboration. Collaboration is important for solving SC2, but for Bloch and Pokutta, the collaborative aspect includes training graduate students to be interdisciplinary – to understand not only the nuances of machine learning or communications engineering, but to be fluent in both fields.

There’s something else that sets the Georgia Tech team apart: While Bloch and Pokutta are the professors heading up the challenge – Pokutta compared Bloch and himself to investors in a startup company – the day-to-day work of solving the challenge is led by graduate students in ECE and ISyE.

Jana Boerger is an ISyE master’s student who will graduate this summer before entering the ISyE Ph.D. program in machine learning in fall 2017. She oversees management of the project. From an ISyE perspective, Boerger said, “The challenge shows that the optimization methods we learn in ISyE can be applied to very technical real-world problems.”

But like Pokutta and Bloch, Boerger sees the value of an interdisciplinary approach. She added, “What’s also interesting is that while our team is all students, the other teams in SC2 are companies – heavyweight teams with a lot of money behind them. I think we as students can be successful if we work together, because we have this interdisciplinary team. Innovation happens when you combine two different fields together, like we’re doing. You need to look outside the box and see what’s there and take the tools and the knowledge and combine what you have.”

Pokutta elaborated, “The challenge is a learning experience that encourages creativity. We don’t just want to take something that’s out there and enhance it. Our strategy is to break with the current paradigms, start in the physical area, and redo everything from scratch with collaboration and spectrum-sharing built in from the start, not just as an afterthought to the technology.”

Keerthi Suria Kumar Arumugam is a Ph.D. student in ECE, and he is the communications team leader. Arumugam’s team builds the interface between the hardware components and designs the signal processing algorithms to push meaningful data to machine-learning algorithms.

He explained, “We make sure we can receive signals from the network, process them, receive insights from machine-learning algorithms, and suitably schedule packets that they can then be pushed to the network.”

Over the course of the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, the 30 teams will compete in three preliminary competitions – in December of 2017, 2018, and 2019 – with a final competition in 2020, taking place in the recently constructed DARPA Colosseum. The teams have a chance to win as much as $3.5 million in prize money.

The Colosseum, as described by the DARPA SC2 website, is located in a 30-foot by 20-foot server room on the campus of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. It is “capable of creating a much larger, and critically important wireless world. If all goes as planned during SC2, competitors … will use the Colosseum … as a world-unique testbed to create radically new paradigms for using and managing access to the electromagnetic spectrum in both military and civilian domains.”

Bloch explained the idea behind holding SC2 in the Colosseum in terms of bringing together a group of people speaking multiple foreign languages in one room: “What DARPA wants is to put people in the room who aren’t speaking the same language. You have no information on what language the others speak. If I speak French and someone else speaks Chinese, there’s little chance that we understand each other. But the key thing – and this is where machine learning kicks in – is that we don’t have to fully understand each other. Maybe we just need to understand high-level features and communicate high-level ideas.”

Pokutta added, “If there are several people in the room, you need to understand when there is a pause in the others’ speaking so you can use that available time to speak for yourself. You don’t need to understand what’s being said; you need to understand when the language is creating gaps or holes you can use for your own communication.”

In the meantime, prior to the preliminary challenges, the Georgia Tech team will compete in “scrimmages,” or informal competitions against several other participating teams that take place in the Colosseum. The scrimmages will provide opportunities for the team to run trials using their own radio networks and to test their algorithms against one another.

Arumugam said, “The scrimmage is an excellent reality check on where we stand with respect to other teams. It is also a great opportunity to experiment with certain features and check how they fare against the other teams. Since the scrimmages are not counted toward the final score, they are essentially rehearsals. We are preparing the first draft of our design to compete against two other teams on June 21.”

Thanks to the interdisciplinary nature and approach of the Georgia Tech Agile Communication Architectures team, the group is uniquely positioned for success in developing and executing an integrated solution to the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge as it navigates the multi-year, multi-phased competition.

Ozkaya’s experience with supply chain management (SCM) is deep and wide-ranging, including a stint at the UN World Food Programme as a supply chain expert advisor, and as a current advisor for the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems, an Interdisciplinary Research Center at Georgia Tech.

In this interview, Ozkaya discusses his passion for and interest in supply chains, his motivation for starting SCW, and the future of supply chain management.

Beginning with your college education to your current company, Supply Chain Wizard, you have been deeply involved in supply chain management. What makes you so passionate about supply chains, and why?

Supply chain management is an intriguing field in every possible way. The more I learn about it, the more I love it.

First and foremost, it is an area that connects everything globally: people, products/services, countries, information, and of course, the money. SCM is like the operating system of the world.

The second reason for my passion is that SCM is complex, and it requires a significant amount of problem solving and analytical skills. This is a prime field for applying engineering skills combined with people and technology skills to solve real complicated business issues.

Finally, I love the integrated nature of SCM and its impact on actual business results such as revenues, margins, and customer happiness. As a “supply chain wizard,” I enjoy this final aspect the most — aligning and integrating all business functions so that companies reach their maximum potential.

You’ve worked in various supply chain-related roles, from NGOs like the UN World Food Programme to major companies such as McKinsey. What have your broad range of experiences enabled you to bring to your own company?

I have worked in every possible area of SCM including: demand management and forecasting; production planning and scheduling; warehousing and inventory management; logistics; network design; procurement; customer service; sales and operations planning;  and supply chain organization design.

Thanks to my Ph.D. work (advised by William W. George Chair Pinar Keskinocak) at Georgia Tech and my experience at McKinsey, I have focused on various industries with supply chain and operations projects and research such as health care; medical devices; high tech; consumer packaged goods; logistics; industrial engineering; and private equity.

At SCW, I wanted to bring my knowledge and insights of SCM best practices, while recognizing the need for industry-specific domain knowledge to add real value. I started SCW with the pharma industry as our primary focus, with an eye toward expanding our services to other industries over time. The key value I brought with me to SCW was the ability to see end-to-end supply chain operations and to bring systems-level thinking to any client situation.

Supply Chain Wizard is a fairly young company. Describe what it does and what motivated you to found it.

In 2013, I was driving from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Princeton, New Jersey, when I came up with the company name “Supply Chain Wizard.” I was returning from an invited talk I gave to Carnegie Mellon University business students on consulting skills. I started dreaming about how SCW could be a leading organization globally – a thought leader in the area of SCM and business transformations.

This is my first entrepreneurial experience, and I am dedicated to making it my last one, as I hope to retire from SCW and put my Ph.D. to use by teaching supply chain management at a university during my retirement years.

SCW is currently focused on supply chain traceability and supply chain security in the pharmaceutical industry. We help clients implement the supply chain infrastructure they need to secure their supply chains from counterfeit drugs. This is a major regulatory requirement in more than 40 countries.

Besides our consulting services, we are building innovative software solutions using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, Big Data analytics, and machine-learning approaches to solve our clients’ supply chain problems.

What is the secret to Supply Chain Wizard’s rapid growth and success?

We are one of the fastest growing companies in our industry, having captured some of the largest client accounts in the industry (including four of the top five U.S. generic drug manufacturers). The primary reason for our success is building a strong foundation of knowledge and expertise into repeatable processes using our software tools. We are not only providing client services; we are also providing software solutions to support our client services team, and eventually leaving behind these software solutions for our clients as a way to have sustainable impact.

Our aim is to digitize our clients’ factory and supply chain operations, so they can continuously improve their bottom line. We are now operating in five countries – the U.S., Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands, and India – serving global clients.

What significant issues do you think will impact supply chain management in the next three to five years?

Supply chains are going digital already. I wrote a recent blog post about “Self-Driving Supply Chain (SDSC): 7 Technology Platforms That Will Take Over Your Job.” The key message of this article was about the supply chain automation that already has started with the self-driving cars movement by Google, Amazon, and other leading technology companies for automated deliveries.

This movement toward automation threatens traditional jobs as we know them, opening the path to a more advanced set of design jobs. We will see a significant push toward the automation and digitization of supply chains in the next three to five years. But this is just the start.

These trends will bring one of the most difficult challenges we see in SCM, which is the supply chain talent gap. We already have a major talent gap in the supply chain field, and these trends will widen that gap, at least in the short term.

Schools like ISyE – that have the ability to generate many talented supply chain professionals – will need to work closely with industry players to address this issue.

For example, when Dunkin was finishing her master’s degree at Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), she received a phone call specifically inviting her to interview for a position with Hewlett-Packard (HP) in Boise, Idaho.

Did she want to move to Boise? “Not really,” Dunkin said in a recent interview, laughing. But her would-be supervisor persisted, and eventually Dunkin headed to Idaho and spent the next three years designing material handling and systems for HP’s R&D on laser jet printers.

Eventually, Dunkin had enough of Idaho’s extended below-freezing winter temperatures and relocated to Vancouver, Wash., where she remained for the next 17 years. During this time, she worked on a varied number of projects: software quality, R&D, operations, and then found herself back in IT, where she spent a number of years.

“I did cool stuff at HP – and got to see a lot of the world,” Dunkin noted. For her last project with the company, she worked as a program manager to help develop and bring an enterprise-class inkjet printer to the market.

“Inkjet printers are typically desktop-size printers,” she explained, “but they decided to build one that could serve as a full-size hallway copier.” Although the project ended up being discontinued for cost reasons, “bits of it are still out there in the guts of some office jet printers.”

From the corporate world, Dunkin took her career into the nonprofit sector. For the next five years, she served as chief technology officer (CTO) – which is equivalent to the corporate chief information officer (CIO) designation – for the Palo Alto, Calif. school district. “I was able to help about 15,000 kids in the district, so it felt like a great opportunity to make a contribution,” Dunkin reflected.

While in Palo Alto, she received another phone call – perhaps what some would consider the phone call: from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel asking if she had an interest in becoming the CIO for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Barack Obama’s administration.

When asked how getting that phone call felt, Dunkin said, “First of all, when the president calls, you don’t say no. Additionally, the EPA was the agency I wanted to come to, as an opportunity to serve more broadly. The EPA helps protect the environment for the entire world. Air and water don’t know any boundaries, so what we did didn’t just help the U.S. – it served the whole world. It felt good to do that work.”

Dunkin joined the EPA in August 2014 and while there, she oversaw the cultural transformation of the agency’s IT department. She described it as pushing the agency toward being agile, using the cloud, and “embracing the desire to move fast, make changes, and take risks.

“I never bought into the idea that the federal government is full of people who are lazy and don’t care. The folks I worked with at the EPA were smart, capable people, and they were deeply concerned about the mission of the agency.”

In terms of climate change – which is not the sole focus of the EPA, Dunkin was quick to point out – she said that “clean energy is coming because of market forces. There are states, cities, municipalities, and companies deeply committed to doing the right thing.”

So what came next for Dunkin after leaving the EPA at noon on January 20, 2017? Though – as a life-long philatelist – she considered a position with the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, she ultimately answered the call for a CIO position with the county of Santa Clara, Calif. Santa Clara is the 15^th largest county in the U.S. with a budget of $6.1 billion, and it represents the heart of Silicon Valley. “It’s the center of technology, and we need to tap into that technology. Counties are the lifeblood of the world: fire, police, jails, voter registration, social services, property taxes, and so on. [The job] represented a compelling opportunity,” she said.

As CIO, Dunkin is responsible for all of the technological infrastructure in the county, as well as how the public interacts with it. One of her goals is to increase the customer service aspect of the county’s technology – for example, making it easier for someone to pay their property taxes online. In addition, she wants the county to better understand its residents.

“About five percent of the folks in our community use the vast majority of the resources our county delivers,” Dunkin explained. “We see them in the health care system, in the social services system, in law enforcement. So we’re looking to use analytics to understand these residents better, and how we can help them use fewer services. This is not because we don’t want to provide services, but because in almost every case, quality of life goes up when fewer county services are used. No one starts out wanting to be put in jail or deal with child protective services or be in and out of the hospital. It’s very concrete – what we do has an immediate impact on someone’s life.”

When asked how she has thrived in the technology sector, which is famously male-dominated, Dunkin is very clear. “There is no doubt that there’s still a lot of sexism and ageism in Silicon Valley,” she said. While the general perception is that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, Dunkin suggested that the public sector is more favorable to women and minorities. “I think that how I’ve been successful has been partly in choosing to change my path forward to the public sector, where it was easier for me to get a chance at the jobs.

“The hiring process for federal jobs tends to be more ‘color-blind,’” she continued. “I think women continue to be underestimated and continue to find alternative paths. It’s still true that women and minorities have to be twice as good to get half as far.”

It’s clear that Dunkin lives out her definition of success: “Success is ultimately doing something that makes you happy, where you feel like you’re making a contribution that’s meaningful.”

Dunkin also makes meaningful contributions through her extensive involvement with ISyE. She currently serves on ISyE’s Advisory Board. In addition, the generous provisions made by Dunkin through her retirement account and her estate plans will provide permanent faculty support in ISyE. She attributes the beginning of her success to the education she received at Georgia Tech and ISyE. “I want to be sure future students have the opportunity to attend the best engineering program in the world,” she added.

IISE is the premier professional organization for industrial and systems engineers, and the Fellow Award recognizes outstanding leaders of the profession who have made significant, nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering. Becoming a fellow is the highest classification of IISE membership.

About Edwin Romeijn

“I’m very happy to be recognized by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers with the 2017 IISE Fellow Award,” Romeijn said. “With this honor, my colleague Chuck Zhang and I join the esteemed company of others who have distinguished themselves through contributions to the field of industrial and systems engineering.”

As ISyE chair, Romeijn is responsible for overseeing ISyE as the nation’s largest industrial engineering program.

His areas of expertise include optimization theory and applications. His recent research activities deal with issues arising in radiation therapy treatment planning and supply chain management. In radiation therapy treatment planning, his main goal has been to develop new models and algorithms for efficiently determining effective treatment plans for cancer patients who are treated using radiation therapy, and treatment schedules for radiation therapy clinics. In supply chain optimization, his main interests are in the integrated optimization of production, inventory, and transportation processes, in particular in the presence of demand flexibility, limited resources, perishability, and uncertainty.

Romeijn is currently an associate editor of IISE Transactions. He is a member of the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), Mathematical Optimization Society (MOS), Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

Romeijn received his M.S. in econometrics and Ph.D. in operations research from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1988 and 1992, respectively.

About Chuck Zhang

Zhang said, “I consider the elevation to IISE Fellow, the highest classification of IISE membership, to be an honor and an acknowledgement of the accomplishments in my career.”

As a professor in ISyE, Zhang's current research interests include additive manufacturing (including 3D printing and printed electronics), cyber-physical systems, scalable nanomanufacturing, and multifunctional composites/nanocomposites. His research projects have been sponsored by numerous federal agencies including the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Laboratory, Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation, and Office of Naval Research, as well as industrial companies such as ATK Launch Systems, Cummins, Delta Air Lines, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens Power Generation. Zhang has published over 170 refereed journal articles and 200 conference papers. He also holds 23 U.S. patents.

Zhang received his Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa, an M.S. degree in industrial engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China. Prior to joining ISyE, Zhang served as a professor and chairman of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at the Florida A&M University - Florida State University College of Engineering.

Scholarships are awarded based on academic excellence, financial need, and involvement with women-focused professional organizations such as WIE and Society of Women Engineers (SWE), as well as other criteria (major, GPA, and citizenship) specified by each of the corporate sponsors.

 WIE Scholarship Recipients and Sponsoring Agency

Navila Akther, junior, Kimberly-Clark

Hannah Arents, freshman, Norfolk Southern

Lauren Boulger, senior, General Motors

Ingrid Cai, junior, Bosch

Eileen Chen, sophomore, Honeywell

Hannah Chen, junior, Eaton

Abigail Copeland, senior, BP

Sheena Ganju, senior, Georgia Power

Erin Gant, senior, NIIT Tech

Nataly Granados, freshman, NIIT Tech

Anushka Gupta, senior, Honeywell

Emma Heaslet, senior, BP

Danielle Hunt, senior, General Motors

Joyce Kinsey, junior, Rockwell Automation

Tina Lu, sophomore, Prof. Keskinocak Scholarship

Julianne McCallum, junior, Michelin

Prachi Mishra, junior, Arconic

Grace Oberst, freshman, Michelin

Ije Okafor, senior, Jane Ammons Scholarship

Marie Ozenua, sophomore, Rockwell Automation

Anna Smith, senior, BP

Rachel Smith, junior, Rockwell Automation

Charu Thomas, junior, Boeing

Charitty Tuttle, freshman, Prof. Keskinocak Scholarship

Alexandra Vezeau, sophomore, John Deere

But it's another high-stakes issue that has the Georgia Tech graduate-to-be a little distracted as commencement day nears.

In conjunction with his studies, the St. Thomas More alum has been working as an undergraduate researcher for a group hoping to influence health care legislation in the state of Georgia. Monahan recently helped conduct research for a bill that would increase access to dental-hygiene services for low-income children who are on Medicaid and save the state money through preventative care in return.

The legislation has cleared both the state House and the Senate and is in the hands of Georgia's governor, awaiting approval.

That whole experience — combing through data and recommending policy changes before he has even left campus — has been the highlight of Monahan's college experience. And it has made him a favorite among faculty at the elite Atlanta school, which ranks seventh in U.S. News & World Report's ranking of the nation's top public universities. (Illinois is 10th).

"Since my first encounter with Sean, he has distinguished himself as the type of student who is willing to go above and beyond in pursuit of knowledge," said Nicoleta Serban, Coca-Cola Associate Professor in Tech's  Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. "He is particularly hard-working."

Read more about Monahan's undergraduate research and how he came to Georgia Tech as featured in the News-Gazette (Illinois): http://bit.ly/2qczJn8.

From an early age, Klaer has been involved in sports, whether swimming and playing water polo in high school or managing teams in college. Now, he is making sports the focus of his professional career. Klaer recently sat down for a quick Q-&-A about his time at Georgia Tech, his work with the Atlanta Braves, and how he uses his ISyE skills in his current role with the Atlanta Hawks.

How did you get started in sports management at Georgia Tech?

I was roommates my freshman year with the guy who managed the basketball team. His best friend was Daniel Miller, the former Yellow Jackets center, and Daniel mentioned to the head of basketball operations that I wanted to be a team manager – although I hadn't told him that! I ended up getting an interview, and that’s how I got into sports. I haven’t looked back since.

You were the assistant head manager of the Yellow Jackets basketball team. What were your responsibilities?

I didn't know what I was getting myself into initially. I was able to travel across the country with the team and visit different arenas and coliseums. In addition to setting up for practices and rebounding for shooting, the basketball staff also let me do some statistics work, which was really interesting.

You introduced the player efficiency rating, which is a metric used in the NBA but not so much on the college level. What is it?

It's a per-minute metric of how well someone's doing. A lot of people look at overall stats, for example how many points someone got in a game. If someone scores 15 points and played for 40 minutes, that’s an alright performance, but if they only played five minutes, then that’s exceptional.

It’s really breaking out all those numbers: points, rebounds, assists, steals, etc., and putting them into one number. Then you measure that number against the league average. It helped us guide playing time.

And then when you graduated from Tech you went to the Atlanta Braves. What did you do there?

I was in an 11-month customer relationship management trainee program for the Braves. The program was spread across all departments, so it’s one complete season, and you're treated like a full-time employee.

At the time, the team was two years away from the move to SunTrust Park. I was doing a lot of work regarding how to take our existing member base and transfer them from Turner Field to the new stadium. Members choose their seats based on factors we didn’t necessarily initially consider. For example, most people at Turner liked sitting behind third base because the sun sets behind the third baseline. That way they would get the shade earlier. In SunTrust, now the sun is on the first base side, and the first base is also crowded because it’s the Braves’ side.

So then you went from the Braves to the Hawks. What do you currently do for the Hawks?

I’m a sales analyst, and I do all the reporting that involves ticketing. This means reporting to the executive level how well sales are doing this year, how we're pacing toward the goal, how sales compare to last year, and then breaking the sales down into sub-categories: How are season ticket sales going? How are new sales versus renewed sales going? How are flex sales of smaller packages going?

Philips Arena is about to get renovated, so I've done a lot of research for that, trying to figure out what spots in the arena sell the worst and where we can improve.

How do you use your ISyE skills in what you're doing now?

Every year before the season opens, I get the game schedule and create ticket-sold goals and revenue goals for every game. I work primarily with “R” software – an open-source coding platform. I use a lot of regression techniques to predict those goals.

The hardest part of my job is that we have limited relevant data. We only play 41 regular season home games – 44 if you include pre-season – and it's hard to compare one year versus others. The “product” changes because the team comprises different players every year.

What are you most proud of in terms of your work for the Hawks?

I'm proud of the trust I've created within the organization. There was a moment this year when I had set some lofty goals for certain games, and a lot of people wondered what I was doing. But I said, “This is what my model says; just trust it and you'll see.” We actually exceeded my goal. It’s great to see the model I’ve created work out.

Finally, do you have any advice for ISyE students who are about to graduate or young alumni?

Don't be afraid to take the small jobs. When I started out with the Braves, I made $9.50 per hour – which is barely above minimum wage – and my friends were wondering what I was doing with my life, especially since ISyEs can make a lot more right out of college. But I really wanted to get into sports, and this was the chance that came along.

When I was making $9.50 per hour, I gave up doing some things on the weekend that I couldn’t afford, but at the end of the day I learned a lot. I'm in a better place now as a result of having taken that job. You never know where opportunities are going to lead you.
 

Almost 100 students initially registered for the competition; they then formed approximately 15 teams to compete in the first-round elimination. The finalists included seven teams of mostly graduate students, from a variety of disciplines across Georgia Tech.

The two winning teams – Na’Vi and Brew Crew – were composed of students from Tech’s interdisciplinary Master of Science in Analytics program, which is housed in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering. Team Na’Vi included Harshit Amya, Rishi Bhatia, Arjun Mishra, and Vyom Vats. Na’Vi won first place and was awarded $8,000. Team Brew Crew included Parit Burintrathikul, Aaron D’Souza, Abhishek Khare, and Rishab Parashar. Brew Crew won second place and was awarded $5,000. Both teams received tickets to the Southern Data Science Conference, held April 7, 2017, in Atlanta, Ga.

The Master Modeler Competition was sponsored by Navicure. Serving more than 100,000 providers nationwide, Navicure is a provider of cloud-based claims management and patient payment solutions that enable health care organizations of all sizes to increase revenue, accelerate cash flow, and reduce the cost and effort of managing claims, patient billing and payments, and health care data analytics. 

Team Na’Vi and Team Brew Crew developed solutions to help Navicure better understand the payments processing and business side of health care services. Their insights and models will provide the head of data science and other executives at Navicure with different perspectives on how to leverage their data to improve patient experience as well as physician office efficiency.

This was actually Perini’s second application for an NSF graduate fellowship. As an undergraduate earning his bachelor’s degree in applied math at the College of Charleston, he intially applied and received an honorable mention. Perini was able to apply the feedback he received from his initial application for his successful second application. According to Perini, receiving notification that he would be receiving the NSF graduate fellowship felt “amazing.”

In a recent interview, Perini said that he initially considered teaching high school math but was “hooked early by OR and its applied focus.” He decided to continue those studies in graduate school. Originally from Atlanta, Ga., Georgia Tech was his top choice. “It was nice to come home,” he reflected.

His research project, which is advised by ISyE Professor Natashia Boland, is focused on multi-objective optimization. Perini explained, “Normally when you optimize, you’re focused on improving a single thing. For example, you’re either minimizing costs or maximizing efficiency. ‘Multi-objective’ means taking two or three objectives and improving all of them at once.”

Optimization is already used on a daily basis in such applications as airline scheduling, traffic routing, and traveling salesman problems. Perini gave an example of how multi-objective optimization works: “When you’re scheduling an airline, you can minimize the cost of sending everyone everywhere, and you want to minimize the stress on the flight crew as well. You don’t want them to get too stressed or exhausted while doing their work. So even if you gain a small increase in the cost of the scheduling but you minimize the flight crew’s stress by a lot, then it’s probably worthwhile to do that.”

Health care applications, as well as sustainability and social good factors – such as decreasing pollution or decreasing the use of natural resources – are other examples of additional objectives that can be considered in Perini’s research.

When asked about Perini’s award, Boland said, “This award represents very well-deserved recognition of Tyler’s exceptional abilities as a researcher, and of the potential power and reach of the research he is undertaking. His work in multi-objective mixed integer optimization is already at the frontier of the field, and represents an important first step in the paradigm shift from single to multiple objectives in mixed-integer optimization.

“This NSF graduate fellowship will enable Tyler to focus his time and effort on research, ensuring that the very substantial new developments he plans can be realized, and will help him grow into the future research leader he promises to become.”

Graduate Awards

Alice and John Jarvis, Ph.D. Student Research Award

Winner: Simon Mak

Honorable Mention: Can Zhang

Award presented by:  Edwin Romeijn, H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and Professor

ISyE Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award

I-Hsiang (Ethan) Lee

Award presented by: Brani Vidakovic, Professor

ISyE Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award

Tony Yaacoub

Award presented by:  Dawn Strickland, Director of Student Services

Undergraduate Awards

Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers Excellence in Leadership Award

Alex Berry and Cole Sutter

Award presented by: Edwin Romeijn, H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and Professor

The Evelyn Pennington Outstanding Service Award

Harshil Goel

Award presented by: Dawn Strickland, Director of Student Services

ISyE Alpha Pi Mu Academic Excellence Award

Alex Moran

Award presented by: Julie Swann, Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor

Henry Ford Scholar Award

Michael Wang

Award presented by: Dawn Strickland, Director of Student Services

COE Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award

Sean Monahan

Award presented by: Julie Swann, Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor

ISyE Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award 

Nicole Redder

Award presented by: Natashia Boland, Professor

Kurt Salmon Scholarship in Industrial and Systems Engineering

Mario Wijaya, Anees-Carl Louis Ragy, and Robert Gwynn

Award presented by: Lauren Silver, Academic Advisor

KS2 Technologies, Inc. Entrepreneurship Award

Charu Thomas

Award presented by:  Aaron McHatton, KS2 Technologies, Inc.

KS2 Technologies, Inc. Innovative Technology Award

Anees-Carl Louis Ragy

Award presented by: Aaron McHatton, KS2 Technologies, Inc.

Georgia Tech IISE Student Chapter Student Awards

Outstanding Senior Award 

Anna Smith

Rising Star Award  

Joseph Levy

Most Successful International Student Award 

Jose Ernesto Chedraui

Outstanding Freshman Award 

Morgan Knowlton

Awards presented by:  Ida Mizani, President, Georgia Tech Chapter of IISE

Team Oculogx is one of 12 U.S. finalists competing to be among six teams advancing to the World Finals for a chance at winning $100,000.

The team includes three students from the College of Computing – third-year Computer Science students Cheng Hann, Sarthak Srinivas, and Wenqi Xian. Second-year Industrial & Systems Engineering student Charu Thomas founded the startup company behind the team.

Microsoft’s Imagine Cup is a global student tech competition that encourages students to use their creativity, passion, and knowledge of technology to create applications that meet real-world challenges with innovative solutions.

For the challenge, Team Oculogx introduces PickAR, a mixed reality app that melds Microsoft’s HoloLens and Azure MySQL database to improve order picking in warehouses. The app integrates waypoint navigation, barcode scanning, and direct communication with warehouse management software systems to improve overall efficiency.

Highlights from this week’s U.S. Imagine Cup student competition are going to be broadcast on April 27 as a virtual event hosted by Sabrina from YouTube's Nerdy & Quirky.

This year, the CoE inducted six alumni from the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) on April 8, 2017: Alan L. Dorris, Elaine Ho Johns, John David Ratliff, Michael E. Tennenbaum, Maurice A. Trebuchon, and Annie McKay Walker.

Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni

The Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award recognizes future leaders from the CoE. They are on the “fast track,” having advanced rapidly within their organizations through their outstanding professional achievements.

Anne McKay Walker (BSIE 02), Vice President, Divisional Merchandise Manager, Over The Counter, Walmart Stores, Inc.

Walker received a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech in 2002. She serves as vice president of over-the-counter merchandising for Walmart US. She began her career with Walmart in 2002 as an industrial engineer, and after spending two years with the Store Engineering team, she supported the replenishment division in several capacities.

Walker’s latest role in replenishment was serving as senior director of replenishment for the General Merchandise division. In 2012, she transitioned from Replenishment to vice president for merchandise execution, and she became responsible for developing and implementing strategies that support and drive the merchant strategy through to store execution. Walker sits on the ISyE Advisory Board.

Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni

The Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni honors highly placed executives who are actively involved in engineering, management, industry, academia, or government.

Elaine Ho Johns (BSIE 85), President and CEO, EnerVision, Inc.

Johns holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech. She is president and CEO of EnerVision, where she leads the company's nationwide consulting and business development efforts. She has more than 30 years of consulting experience in areas including strategic planning, power supply planning, utility rates, marketing, and economic analysis.

She is one of the founders of EnerVision, started its power supply business line, and currently leads its management consulting business line. Johns’ affiliations include the Council on Industrial and Systems Engineering, the Georgia Tech College of Engineering External Advisory Board, the ISyE Advisory Board, the Institute of Industrial Engineers, and the Women’s Energy Network — Greater Atlanta Chapter.

John David Ratliff (BSIE 81), CEO, Covance Drug Development

Ratliff earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech in 1981, and he received his MBA from Duke University in 1985. He currently serves as CEO of Covance Drug Development, the world’s most comprehensive drug development company and the only provider of full-spectrum drug development services from early-stage research to regulatory approval and beyond. Previously, Ratliff was president and CEO of HUYA Bioscience International. His health care industry experience also includes almost 10 years at Quintiles, the world’s largest provider of product development and integrated health care services, where he served as chief financial officer before becoming president and chief operating officer.

Prior roles throughout his career include CFO at Acterna and positions of increasing responsibility during his 19-year tenure at IBM. Ratliff supports entrepreneurial endeavors such as Remarque Systems, a provider of risk-based monitoring software solutions; Undercover Colors, a drug-detection consumer product line; and T3D Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage drug development company engaged in the development of a new orally administered treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Maurice A. Trebuchon (BSIE 86), Partner, PwC Consulting and IBM Global Business Services (retired)

Trebuchon earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in 1986. He enjoyed a 28-year career in management consulting and business leadership, serving as a partner first with PwC Consulting and later IBM Global Business Services. With a deep background in supply chain management, strategy, and operational consulting, he has served in multiple North America leadership roles including retail industry leader, business analytics & optimization service line leader, and supply chain service line leader.

During his career, Trebuchon has primarily focused on assisting industry-leading clients in achieving business transformation via development of strategies, operational designs, leverage of information technology, and organizational change adoption. Today, he is the Edenfield executive in residence at ISyE, a member of the ISyE Advisory Board, and an advisor for Senior Design.

Engineering Hall of Fame

Individuals who are inducted into the CoE Hall of Fame have made meritorious engineering and/or managerial contributions over the course of very distinguished professional careers.

Alan L. Dorris (BSIE 70, MSIE 72, Ph.D. IE 74), Founder and Principal Consultant, Dorris and Associates International LLC

Dorris received his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in 1970.  He subsequently received a master’s degree and a doctoral degree in industrial engineering, also from Tech, in 1972 and 1974, respectively. Upon finishing graduate school, he started an academic career by accepting a position as assistant professor of industrial engineering at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. At OU he taught a variety of industrial engineering courses and conducted research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation in transportation safety. Drawing on his Georgia Tech training in human factors engineering and ergonomics, he conducted some of the initial research into human responses to precautionary information and the motivation of safe behavior as a component of systems.

In 1978, Dorris accepted a management position with the JI Case Company in Racine, Wis., where his responsibilities focused on the safety of users of agricultural and construction equipment. In 1982 Dorris and his wife, Patsy, started a consulting company that grew to become Dorris and Associates International LLC (DAI). Over the past 35 years, DAI has provided management advice, product-design guidance, accident analysis, and litigation support to companies, governmental agencies, and law firms in the application of behavioral science findings to product design. An emeritus member of the ISyE Advisory Board and the Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees, Dorris is a recipient of the Georgia Tech’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.

Michael E. Tennenbaum (BSIE 58, Hon. Ph.D. 16), Chairman, Caribbean Capital & Consultancy Corp.

Tennenbaum graduated from Georgia Tech in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, and he received an honorary doctorate in 2016. He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

He is the founder of Caribbean Capital & Consultancy Corp., a Puerto Rico-based private merchant bank that seeks to make active investments. Previously, he co-founded Tennenbaum Capital Partners, a leading specialty credit investor. Prior to TCP, he managed various departments of a major investment bank.

Tennenbaum is a member of the Smithsonian Institution National Board and a member of its Investment Committee, and he is founder of the Tennenbaum Marine Observatories. He founded the Tennenbaum Interdisciplinary Center at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA, where he established the Michael E. Tennenbaum Family Endowed Chair in Creativity Research. He is a former member of the Secretary of the Navy Advisory Panel and a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He also has been a vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and was chairman of its Investment Committee; he is now a life member of its Board of Governors. He is founder of the Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation.

He is an emeritus member of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board and the Georgia Tech Foundation Board of Trustees, where he was chairman of its Investment Committee. Tennenbaum is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni of Georgia Tech’s CoE.

Major General Kelly McKeague was inducted as the Advisory Board’s new chair. He will lead the board for a one-year term.

Kelly McKeague, Advisory Board Chair

Kelly McKeague (BSIE 81, MSIE 87) retired in 2015 after a 34-year U.S. Air Force career which began in 1981. Following his commission from Georgia Tech’s Air Force ROTC program, he served in various industrial engineering positions. As a major general, his last assignments were leading the Department of Defense POW/MIA mission, which has worldwide responsibility for the analysis and investigation, search and recovery, and forensic operations to account for Americans missing from World War II to the first Persian Gulf War. McKeague is currently an independent consultant providing strategic and operational consulting to small-capital corporations seeking to develop business lines and/or product and services placement with federal agencies in Washington, D.C.

He and his wife, Nancy, reside in Alexandria, Va.

Alfredo Boratto

Alfredo Boratto (BSIE 89, MSIE 91) is an accomplished entrepreneurial executive with experience across top-tier companies valued for driving multimillion-dollar new business growth and investment programs in the technology, health care, and life sciences industries by leading investment, strategy, new business development, and sales and marketing teams.

Previously, Boratto was the segment leader for IBM responsible for new business opportunities and the creation of strategic relationships (including equity positions) with venture-funded emerging technology companies in the health care and life sciences arena. His prior positions at IBM included business development, sales, and strategy formulation roles for the health care and life sciences business units. Boratto has also worked for Tenix in Australia and Merck & Co. in the U.S.

In addition to his degrees from ISyE, Boratto earned an MBA from the Executive Program at Columbia Business School, and he is a graduate of The Wharton School Management Program from the University of Pennsylvania. Boratto is a dual citizen of the United States and Europe and is a native Italian speaker with a working knowledge of Spanish.

 Kim Felix

Kim Felix (BSIE 88) is vice president of information technology for UPS. Felix currently leads the enterprise computer, collaboration, and data services portfolio responsible for global computer operations, technology support, collaboration tools and services, IT practices, data strategy and services, and advanced analytics. Prior to her current assignment, Felix led the transportation technology group portfolio responsible for UPS airline, global brokerage, and global transportation technology solutions. She began her UPS career in the customer technology portfolio, leading teams in the expansion and build out of internet based applications on UPS.com, including the development of web services and tools used for customer integration services, shipping, and visibility solutions. 

In addition to her degree from ISyE, Felix has a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Southern California, a master’s certificate in project management from the Stevens Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Spelman College. 

Community engagement is a priority for Felix. She serves on the Overseers Board for NJIT and the United Way Bergen County Board. Felix is executive advisor for the IS African American Business Resource Group. She has a particular interest in STEM-based programs that encourage young men and women to enter the science and technology fields and supports and sponsors multiple activities including the VEX Robotics International Competition hosted in Louisville, Ky.

John McKenney

John McKenney (BSIE 90) is president and chief executive officer for McKenney’s, Inc., a third-generation, employee-owned business headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. He began his career with Trane. During his successful six-plus years with Trane, he served as a sales engineer working with consulting engineers, mechanical contractors, and industrial owners to design and sell commercial and industrial air conditioning equipment and controls. He joined McKenney’s, Inc. in 1997, and has held the positions of project manager, senior project manager, and vice president of Atlanta Construction, all before his current role as president and chief executive officer.

McKenney is recognized as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus by the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. He serves as a trustee for the Atlanta Plumbers and Steamfitters Health and Welfare Fund. A member of the Atlanta Rotary Club, McKenney is a 2014 Graduate of Leadership Atlanta. He is past president, past board member, and current treasurer of the Mechanical Contractors’ Association of Georgia (MCAG) and board member of the Atlanta Area Council Boy Scouts of America. He served as an elder at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody and is an Eagle Scout.

Born and raised in Atlanta, McKenney and his wife, Janine, reside in Sandy Springs, and have two children in college.

Steve Necessary

Steve Necessary (BSEES 78) is executive vice president of product development and management for Cox Communications, where he has worked since 2005. He directs new development and lifecycle management for all products across residential and business portfolios. Previously, Necessary served as vice president of video product strategy, development, and management, and oversaw the conception, development, and deployment of new video products, including the company’s flagship Contour service.

Necessary is a member of Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), and Cable Pioneers. He is an emeritus member of the board of the Atlanta Ballet and Christians in Cable and is active in Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Church.

In addition to his degree from Georgia Tech, Necessary earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Debbie, have three daughters and three grandchildren.

Ronda Sides

Ronda Sides (BSIE 83) and her husband, Alan (BME 83), are pleased to return to the United States after living in Singapore, the UK, Japan, and China since 1997. Sides’ professional experience includes computer software customer and sales support with Management Science America; investment banking with Bear Stearns & Co; and corporate valuation consulting with Morris and Associates. She is the co-founder of Omni Technology Centers (later Extreme Logic), a computer software training and consulting firm and Microsoft reseller.

Sides and her husband have 33 consecutive years of Roll Call support, and both established scholarships in 2000 during the Campaign for Georgia Tech. Additionally, she served on the Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees, was named to the Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni, and served as Georgia Tech Student Government Association president.

Sides and her husband live in Alpharetta, Ga. with their two daughters. In addition to her degree from ISyE, Sides holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

A refereed journal, IISE Transactions publishes original, high-quality papers with a strong methodological focus on real problems that impact engineering practice and research. The journal publishes research motivated by critical and complex engineering problems that arise in a wide variety of domains including manufacturing, service, public policy, health care, security, biotechnology, transportation, and others.

As editor-in-chief, Shi will be responsible for the technical content and direction of the journal, selection of the focused area editors and all editorial board appointments, oversight of the publication process of the journal, management of the IISE Transactions best papers awards, and enhancing the visibility and prestige of IISE Transactions. His goals for his EIC tenure are “to contribute to the prestigious reputation of IISE Transactions as a top-tier journal in our profession and to promote the frontier research of the industrial and systems engineering community.”

Shi said, “Special-focus issues will be the mechanism to promote new emerging areas and to nurture authorship, referees, and reader groups.”

He has also served as focus issue editor, interim focus issue editor, department editor, and editorial board member for IISE Transactions.

In an IISE news release, outgoing editor-in-chief Ronald Askin called Shi a “world-class researcher.”

“Shi has done an excellent job as the focus issue editor for quality and reliability engineering,” Askin said. “I’m confident his vision and energy will lead to increased quality and visibility for IISE Transactions over the next four years.”

Widely recognized for his numerous contributions to the field, Shi is an early pioneer in the development and application of data-enabled manufacturing. His algorithms integrate system informatics, advanced statistics, and control theory for the design and operational improvements of manufacturing and service systems by fusing engineering systems models with data science methods. The technologies developed in his research group have been implemented in various production systems with significant economic impacts.

Shi received IISE’s David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award and Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award and is a fellow of IISE, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, INFORMS (the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences), and an academician of the International Academy for Quality. 

The Red Cross partnered with a team from Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), which includes George Family Foundation Assistant Professor Turgay Ayer, Schneider National Chair in Transportation and Logistics Chelsea White III, Professor Roshan Vengazhiyil, and ISyE Ph.D. student Can Zhang, on their project "American Red Cross Uses Analytics-based Methods to Improve Blood Collection Operations." They have proposed and analyzed an alternate blood collection model to increase the amount of whole blood that can be processed into a critical blood product, cryoprecipitate (cryo), while reducing per unit collection costs. Cryo plays a critical role in clotting and controlling massive hemorrhaging, and is often used in the treatment of massive trauma and many major diseases, including metastasized cancers, cardiac diseases, hepatic failures, and organ transplants. After reviewing blood collecting and processing schedules, collection locations, historical yields rates, and donor-related factors, the researchers developed an advanced analytics-based approach that allowed them to study the potential benefit of the proposed alternate collection model.

The promising findings from this analysis later led to a decision support tool (DST) implemented by the Red Cross Southern Region, which serves more than 120 hospitals in the Southern U.S. The implementation of the DST resulted in a significant increase in the number of whole blood units satisfying the tight collection-to-process completion time constraint for cryo production. In particular, during the fourth quarter of 2016, the Red Cross Southern Region was able to process approximately 1000 more units of cryo per month (an increase of 20 percent) at a slightly lower collection cost, resulting in a 40 percent reduction in the per unit collection cost for cryo. This DST has recently been presented to the executives at the national level of the Red Cross, and plans are in place to extend the implementation of the DST to the 11 other American Red Cross regions in the future.

The Edelman Award recognizes excellence in applying advanced operations research and analytics to transform business and human lives. Edelman finalist teams have improved organizational efficiency, increased profits, brought better products to consumers, helped foster peace negotiations, and saved lives. To date, the finalists for the Edelman Award have contributed to a cumulative impact of over $240 billion.

The 2017 Edelman Award winner will be presented at the Edelman Gala on April 3, 2017, during the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research in Las Vegas. 

“That's always enchanted me because it means that I can start helping people and start building something useful even as a 21-year-old. I don't have to put in time, wait my turn on the corporate ladder, and then work on cool projects when I'm 40 -- I can do them today!”

Originally Bambot was planning to pursue what he describes as “the typical Indian kid route: go to college for engineering, go to med school, and become a doctor.” But through the strong encouragement of his parents, he enrolled in the TYE entrepreneurship program his senior year of high school and got hooked.

In this interview, Bambot talks about his leadership development through Georgia Tech’s business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi (AKPsi), as well as the idea for and development of InternBlitz, the startup for which Bambot and his partner are 2017 InVenture Prize finalists.

You were president of Alpha Kappa Psi (AKPSi) business fraternity. What have you learned from holding this position of responsibility?

Much of my leadership experience was cultivated in AKPsi. As president, I managed the fraternity of 70 people, oversaw our $80,000 annual budget, and made decisions to help enrich the college experiences of hundreds of students around campus. The biggest thing I learned from my time as president is how to operate in a field of enormous uncertainty: As president of an organization, there isn't really anyone that you can go to when things go wrong. Of course, there are people that can give you advice, but in the end, you're the one with the most experience in the areas that you're working in, and you're the one who has to make the final decisions. And even after you've made those decisions, you still have no way of knowing if you've made the right decision. 

Serving as president of AKPsi is what made me the most comfortable in running my own company. I learned that with all the uncertainty, the best way to succeed is to craft a vision that you truly believe in, rally everyone around your cause, and execute as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Another major thing that I got out of serving as president of AKPsi was learning how to sell. During my term, the fraternity was extremely short on money, and we were pulling pennies from couch cushions to make ends meet. One of the biggest initiatives I undertook was building out a sustainable corporate sponsorship program to help fund the events we held. We sat down with sales people around Atlanta and learned what enterprise sales processes looked like and worked to gear them toward corporate sponsorship.

Over the next year, we raised over $45,000, selling sponsorships to recruiters at companies like Salesloft, Capital One, Equifax, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and many more. Now, AKPsi continues to raise about $50,000 annually through corporate sponsorship.

Developing this program helped develop the sales skills I'd need to bring on a team and align them towards a vision. It also made me confident in knowing that once we'd built a product, we'd be able to figure out how to sell it to recruiters and turn InternBlitz into a true business.

You and your partner, Nathan Dass (CS 2017), are one of the six finalist teams for this year’s InVenture Prize. You were chosen for your creation, InternBlitz, which you describe as the “common application for internships.” Tell us a little more about InternBlitz and what it is, and how you came up with the idea for it.

I was looking for internships last spring, so I applied to 125 different internships. With every application, I kept entering in the same information over and over -- I knew there had to be a faster way to get this done. 

With InternBlitz, you build a profile with your name, email, and resume, and every internship you apply for on InternBlitz is prefilled with that information. That way, you only have to answer questions like "Why do you want to work at this company?” or “What are your location preferences?”

The goal was to create a platform that would allow students to send out internship applications ridiculously fast so they could spend more time prepping for interviews and learning about companies instead of just filling out the same information on forms over and over.

As we continue to build, we're also creating a machine-learning component to help students find the right internships more easily. Just as Netflix recommends movies to you based off what you've watched, InternBlitz will be able to recommend internships to you based on your profile, where you've applied, and what companies are looking for.

With InternBlitz, we're hoping to simplify recruiting. Our end goal is to have people send out fewer applications but get more interviews. 

What would winning the InVenture Prize mean for InternBlitz?

InVenture gives us $20K if we win. With that money, we'd be able to do three things:

• Sustain marketing costs to expand to eight colleges before the fall recruiting cycle picks up.
• Pay for servers as we scale up to more users (right now we're paying about $100/month out of pocket just for Georgia Tech users).
• Bring one or two dedicated developers to help us build out the platform. We need to be able to pay them a small stipend in addition to giving them equity. From what we've seen, each additional developer helps us pull in about 300 extra internships per month. 

Do you see yourself continuing as an entrepreneur after graduating?

Definitely! Ideally, I'd like to work on InternBlitz full-time when I graduate. 

If that doesn't work out, my hope is leave college and work with an early-stage software startup. I'd like to jump into a sales role (hopefully the second or third sales hire into the company) and help define the company's initial sales strategy, and then help them scale and grow out the sales team over three to five years. 

As human spaceflight inches closer to launching a Mars mission, onboard planning and mission adjustments loom large as potential issues. On a Mars flight, the communications lag time with Mission Control will be between four and 22 minutes, and astronauts need to be able to make some decisions on their own, especially in the event of an emergency.

When the best-laid plans need to be adjusted, how do astronauts reconnoiter?

This question is at the heart of "Technologies for Mixed-Initiative Plan Management for Human Space Flight," research conducted by three Georgia Tech engineering professors: Martin Savelsbergh, James C. Edenfield Chair and professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE); Karen Feigh, an associate professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (AE); and Amy Pritchett, David S. Lewis Professor of Cognitive Engineering in AE.

This research – which the team is just beginning to explore – recently received a two-year, $600,000 NASA Early Stage Innovation (ESI) grant. Together Feigh, Pritchett, and Savelsbergh will work toward developing technology that will allow on-board astronauts to develop their own short- and long-term plans for accomplishing mission objectives.

Feigh said that the team will focus on developing a computational structure and representation of tasks that astronauts must complete. Each task will be defined not only by its obvious demands, but by the constraints it creates. Tasks will be subdivided into sub-tasks and “sub-sub-tasks,” she said, to get the full scope of activity mapped out. The team will then develop a computational algorithm that can derive optimal short- and long-term plans to meet different goals.

Savelsbergh, who works on autonomous scheduling problems in ISyE, said, “The idea here is to explore mechanisms that support more autonomous decision-making. There are several challenging aspects to doing so. The aspect that I’m interested in most is the algorithms that make decisions or suggest decisions, i.e., automatically compute plan changes. This is especially challenging because plan changes have to be evaluated based on multiple different criteria. This is the part of the project where my expertise contributes most.

“Also, because we are dealing with astronauts, there is the question of how we interact with that individual. Our algorithms suggest changes to the plans; how do we communicate those decisions to the astronauts if we offer choices? Can they overrule what we propose? How can they convey information about what’s happening? In other words, how can the team structure and represent information so that communication with the astronaut goes smoothly?”

“It’s certainly an interesting problem,” Savelsbergh added.

Daniel Gurevich, an undergraduate in Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) who is also earning a physics degree and math minor, is the only student from the School to have been named a Petit Scholar for 2017. He plans to graduate in 2020.

In the following Q&A, Gurevich talks about his general interest in science and his research as a Petit Scholar.

How did you end up at Georgia Tech?

I have always been interested in science and technology, and I grew up in Atlanta, so Georgia Tech was a great fit. I actually started taking classes at Tech in high school as a dual-enrolled student, and I loved the experience so much that I knew I wanted to go to college here.

Why are you a dual major in physics and ISyE?

Both ISyE and physics are based on using quantitative analysis to tackle important real-world problems. They are both about understanding and describing emergent phenomena, just in different contexts. Each field offers unmatched opportunities to improve our understanding through mathematical modeling and excites me in its own way.

How does it feel to have been selected to be a Petit Scholar?

It is truly an honor and also a recognition of the importance of the research I am working on.

Describe the research you are doing that led to your being named a Petit Scholar.

I am studying waves of electrical activity in biological tissues such as heart muscle and the retina of the eye. The ultimate goal of this research is to learn how to treat and prevent disorders such as heart arrhythmias, which affect millions of people worldwide and are the main cause of sudden cardiac death, responsible for 15 percent of global deaths.

What makes you most excited and/or passionate about this research?

What I love about my research is that it offers unique intellectual challenges while providing the opportunity for me to make a real difference in people’s lives.

How do you use your ISyE skills in this research?

The patterns of electrical activity that I study can be extremely complicated and difficult to record experimentally. Fully understanding these patterns requires both thorough analysis of large data sets from various experiments and mathematical modeling of different tissue types. These are just a couple of examples of how I apply ISyE skills in my research.

What do you for fun?                                                                         

I am a competitive chess player, ranked among the top 100 juniors in the world, and am the first board of the Georgia Tech collegiate chess team. I also play classical piano in my spare time.

What does the future hold for you?

For now, I am looking to finish my dual major and minor in math, and I plan to go to graduate school. My multidisciplinary education in ISyE and physics will give me the skills to solve a variety of important real-world problems. One problem I am particularly interested in is predicting when patients in intensive care units might crash based on their vital signs. A few minutes of advance warning could make the difference between life and death. ICUs gather a treasure trove of raw data for each patient, but currently there are no methods to identify when preventive measures need to be taken.

The $500,000 award runs through June 30, 2022. Xie’s project is titled “Quick Detection for Streaming Data over Dynamic Networks.” She plans to develop optimal or nearly optimal algorithms of detecting change-points for large networks.

Streaming data over networks has become ubiquitous in today’s world. A fundamental question is how to detect change-points (over time and space) from network streaming data as quickly as possible. This arises from a wide range of applications including geophysical exploration, social network surveillance, power network monitoring, multi-sensor systems for smart cities, as well as cyber security.

Currently, not much is known about how to model these data, how to design an algorithm through a rigorous theoretical framework, how to implement algorithms efficiently online, and how fast we can detect the change with false alarms under control. The proposed research will address these fundamental theoretical and algorithmic questions. The efforts will lead not only to novel technological advances but also help with a much wider interdisciplinary audience in related fields.

“We couldn’t be more excited for Yao upon her receipt of the NSF CAREER Award,” said Edwin Romeijn, the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair at ISyE. “At this early stage in her career, she has already proven to be a talented teacher-scholar, and this grant will support the important and novel research she is conducting with streaming data over dynamic networks.”

About Assistant Professor Yao Xie

Xie’s research interests are in sequential statistical methods, statistical signal processing, big data analysis, compressed sensing, and optimization. She has been involved in applications for wireless communications, sensor networks, and medical and astronomical imaging.

Prior to ISyE, Xie served as a research scientist in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics from Stanford University in 2011.

The NFL Combine gives executives, coaching staffs, player-personnel departments and medical personnel from all 32 NFL teams the opportunity to evaluate the nation’s top draft-eligible college football players in advance of the upcoming NFL Draft. Of the 332 prospects invited to last year’s NFL Combine, only six were place kickers.

Butker, Georgia Tech’s place kicker for each of the past four seasons (2013-16), closed his collegiate career as the Yellow Jackets’ all-time leading scorer with 337 career points. In addition to being Tech’s all-time leading scorer, Butker also holds the school record for career PATs (208) and ranks third in school history in career field-goal percentage (.717) and fifth in career field goals (43).

For more about Butker's success on and off the football field, click here.

“This well-deserved honor is a testament to Alejandro’s contributions to the Stewart School and his field,” said Edwin Romeijn, ISyE’s H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair. “I congratulate him on this important milestone and look forward to seeing his career continue to progress in the months and years ahead.” 

Toriello has research interests in the theory and application of supply chain management, logistics and transportation, and in related optimization methodologies.

He received both his BSIE (2003) and his Ph.D. in industrial engineering (2010) from Georgia Tech.

Prior to joining ISyE in 2013, he served as an assistant professor in the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California.

“David is a tremendous asset to both the Stewart School and his field,” said Edwin Romeijn, ISyE’s H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair. “This promotion reflects David’s continued advancement in what is sure to be a long and distinguished career.”

A member of the ISyE faculty since 2011, Goldberg works in applied probability, interpreted broadly, on topics ranging from inventory control and queueing theory to distributionally robust and combinatorial optimization, and most recently multi-arm bandit problems.  Much of his work focuses on using ideas from probability theory to prove that high-dimensional complex systems can be well-approximated by much simpler systems, and using these insights to devise novel algorithms with provable performance guarantees.  For example, his work in inventory control has focused on applying this mantra to challenging problems in which there is a lead-time delay between when an order is placed and when it is received, such as lost sales models and dual-sourcing problems, for which Goldberg has derived some of the first nearly optimal efficient algorithms.

Goldberg has received several honors for his work, including an NSF CAREER award, first place in the 2015 George Nicholson Student Paper Competition, second place in the 2015 JFIG Paper Competition, and was recognized as a finalist in the 2014 MSOM Student Paper Competition and 2010 George Nicholson Student Paper Competition.  He is also an associate editor for the journals Operations Research and Queueing Systems, a member of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society Council, and a Georgia Tech Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow.

He received his undergraduate degree in computer science from Columbia University, minoring in both industrial engineering/operations research and applied math. He completed his Ph.D. at the MIT Operations Research Center in 2011.

This committee, initially established by the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000 (Biomass Act), was reauthorized by the Agricultural Act of 2014. As part of this committee, Thomas, the Anderson Interface Professor of Natural Systems at the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering, will assist the USDA and DOE in meeting the Act’s national goals of a healthier rural economy and improved national energy security.

The Act’s main focus is on overcoming key technical challenges through R&D that will lead to an expanded U.S. bio-based industry. Thomas has the responsibility of providing advice to the two departments on matters including biomass research and development; technical focus and direction of requests for proposals issued under the initiative; procedures for reviewing and evaluating requests for proposals; and facilitating consultation and partnerships among federal agencies.

Thomas’ research interests are energy and materials efficiency; sustainability; industrial ecology; technology assessment; international security; and science and technology policy. Current research projects include the environmental impacts of biofuels and electricity system policy and planning.

Thomas received a B.A. in physics from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell University. Before coming to Georgia Tech she held positions at Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University. From 2004 to 2005, Thomas was the American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow. A member of the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board from 2003 to 2009, Thomas is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society.

Zhao’s current research focuses on developing a new generation of optimization algorithms with statistical and computational guarantees, as well as user-friendly open source software for machine learning and scientific computing.

He received his Ph.D. in computer science at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in 2016 before joining ISyE. He was a visiting student in the Department of Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from 2011-2012, and the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University from 2014-2016.

Zhao has received several awards and scholarships for his work. He was the core member of the JHU team winning the INDI ADHD 200 global competition on fMRI imaging-based diagnosis classification in 2011. He received the Siebel scholarship in 2014, the Baidu Fellowship in 2015-2016, and a Chinese Government Scholarship for Outstanding Graduates Abroad in 2016. He was the co-recipient of the 2016 ASA Best Student Paper Award on Statistical Computing and the 2016 INFORMS SAS Best Paper Award on Data Mining.

Maguluri's research interests are in the broad area of optimization and performance analysis of various stochastic systems, with a particular focus on scheduling and resource allocation problems for data centers, cloud computing, and communication networks. His research spans and uses tools and techniques from queuing theory, stochastic networks, control theory, game theory, stochastic processes, and optimization.

He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering in 2014 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to that, he earned two master’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – one in applied mathematics (2014) and one in electrical and computer engineering (2011). In 2008, he earned his B. Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

Before joining Georgia Tech, Maguluri was a research staff member in the Mathematical Sciences Department at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center.

Singh’s research interests include discrete optimization, approximation algorithms, and convex optimization. His research is focused on optimization problems arising in cloud computing, logistics, network design, and machine learning.

Singh received the Tucker Prize in 2009 given by the Mathematical Optimization Society for an outstanding doctoral thesis “Iterative Methods in Combinatorial Optimization.” He also received the best paper award for his work on the traveling salesman problem at the Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) in 2011.

Previously, Singh was an assistant professor at McGill University from 2010-2011 and a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, New England from 2008-2009. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2008 from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.

His research interests are in the areas of revenue management, supply chain and logistics, and statistical learning. His current research focuses on the interface between machine learning and operations management, where he develops data-driven methods for applications including inventory management and dynamic pricing.

He was a finalist for the 2015 IBM Service Science Best Student Paper Award and a second-place recipient of the 2013 CSAMSE Best Paper Award.

Wang received his Ph.D. in operations research in 2016 and his M.S. in transportation in 2013, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2011, he received a B.S. in industrial engineering and a B.S. in math from Tsinghua University in China.

A fourth-year student in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), Mathis is passionate about the arts. She began singing in her Macon, Georgia church choir at the age of three, completed a finishing school program for singing, modeling, and acting in grade school, and attended an International Baccalaureate fine arts school throughout high school.

When it came time to apply for college, Mathis was familiar with Tech because her father is a mechanical engineering alumnus of Georgia Tech. In addition to the family connection, Mathis was interested in Tech because of its Midtown Atlanta location and the proximity to great music. “When I was a freshman and had a lab report due, right after turning in that lab report, I would go to a concert,” she remembered. “You have so many opportunities to engage in the arts. I love Atlanta and all the opportunities it allows me to have.”

Mathis has created some of those artistic opportunities on her own. While in high school, she founded Caterpillar’s Promise, Inc. (CP), an organization focused on motivating youth to use their talents to help others through community service and events. Mathis brought CP with her to Tech, and her work has continued and expanded, including an emphasis on social justice. 

Such work involves an annual fall arts celebration, “What’s Going On: A Concert for Social Justice,” that takes its name from “What’s Going On,” the 1971 consciousness-raising song by Marvin Gaye. The Georgia Tech concert features original art, music, spoken word, and dance, and more – all taking place around the Campanile.

“I've been passionate about social justice since my childhood,” said Mathis. “I had a vision for an outdoor concert that involved my artistically inclined friends and me, all jamming to songs about social injustice." On September 11, 2015, the first What's Going On: A Concert for Social Justice (WGO) took place. The next year, CP presented the second annual WGO concert.

Mathis followed up the successful concerts by challenging herself to write more: “As a result, I wrote a musical production as the sequel to the WGO concerts. The musical is about two college students who end up in a dream world that awakens them to current social issues and helps them consider how they can take action. The production comprises six performance numbers that range from singing, spoken word, dancing, and stepping. Think of it as a highly exaggerated autobiography of how the WGO concert started.”

The musical, also called “What’s Going On,” is being presented by CP and is sponsored by the Georgia Tech MLK Student Board as a featured event for the MLK Student Celebration series. It debuts on January 25 at 7PM at Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts. (Free tickets are available here: bit.ly/2jsZdJz.)

In addition to her many artistic endeavors, Mathis actively uses her ISyE skills for good through her participation in Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program and Engineering for Social Innovation (ESI)  – “Basically my end goal for life,” she said. For ESI, she initially served on a team partnered with the Atlanta-based Frazer Center to design a summertime outdoor curriculum and classroom for children with disabilities. Her second ESI project is with Georgia Works. She is performing a cost-benefit analysis on George Works’ programs to end chronic homelessness.  

Describing how she balances her many artistic activities with the demands of her ISyE studies, Mathis said, “ISyE is also a passion. If you’re heavily involved in more than just school, you’re going to have to lose some sleep and prioritize. This has been one of my biggest challenges in school. Becoming an ISyE major helped me with that.

“So ISyE helps me with my life and also tortures me at the same time,” she added, laughing. “I just want to fulfill my caterpillar's promise to motivate others to use their gifts for the greater good, so enduring long hours is okay with me."

Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.

“It is truly an honor to receive this award that recognizes federally funded research, which had its inception during my Ph.D. at Georgia Tech. I am indebted to ISyE and my advisors for the training and mentoring I received, as well as NSF for their support," said Vielma.

In 2009, Vielma earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was advised by Dean's Professor and Stewart Faculty Fellow Shabbir Ahmed and A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Institute Professor George Nemhauser.

He obtained a B.S and M.S. in mathematical engineering from the University of Chile. Vielma spent a year at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center as the 2009 Herman Goldstine Postdoctoral Fellow. He went on to serve as an assistant professor of industrial engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh prior to joining the MIT Sloan School of Management in July 2012. Vielma has been affiliated with the MIT Operations Research Center since 2012.

His research interests include theory and technology for linear, nonlinear, and stochastic mixed integer programming, as well as optimization models in natural resource management, marketing, and statistics.

Her brothers introduced her to Georgia Tech’s tradition, campus and academic programs, helping her channel her love of math and accounting into the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE.)

“They knew me and what I liked,” Trimm said. “They majored in physics, mechanical engineering and computer science. If they hadn’t come here first, I would never have heard about industrial engineering and fallen in love with it.”

Not only does Trimm love that ISyE is the No. 1-ranked industrial engineering program in the country, according to the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but she also loves the diversity of disciplines that make up the course work. She specifically cited courses on consulting, data analysis, manufacturing and different types of software as broadening her skill set.

“It’s super challenging,” Trimm said. “They make you code during timed labs. It’s not just memorization. You have to solve problems. So much technology is important to solving these problems.”

Having four Georgia Tech students/graduates in the family made for some interesting conversations around the dinner table. Even though her mother didn’t attend Georgia Tech, she quickly became enamored with what her children were experiencing in this environment.

“My mom is on top of the world,” Trimm said. “Those of us who haven’t gotten a master’s, she encourages us to go back and get another degree from Tech. She loves hearing about what we’ve learned.”

She got to be at Georgia Tech with two of her three brothers, and she’s thrilled that all of her brothers will be in attendance at her graduation. They’re all celebrating her accomplishment, which has led to a job already lined up at KPMG after graduation.

It all makes her grateful for her brothers and that she followed their advice and followed them to Georgia Tech.

“It’s made me so passionate,” Trimm said. “There’s so many people here doing so many wonderful things, it just makes you feel like you want to go out and conquer the world. It makes me want to think of ideas with everyone around me creating startups and the InVenture Prize. I’m always trying to think of ideas now.”

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up at Georgia Tech.

I am originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but my formative years were spent in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge was the geographical center of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and our local economy still heavily relies on scientific research and development.

Our public high school had fantastic efforts to expose its students to the positive impact that pursuing STEM careers could have on our local community, country, and world. So, my incredible and influential teachers at Oak Ridge High School (ORHS), as well as a good friend and Yellow Jacket from ORHS, inspired me to attend Georgia Tech, as a relatively close and prestigious, technologically focused university.

You have said, to use your words, that you are “a proponent of servant leadership.” What shaped your perspective in this regard?

To me, servant leadership consists of devoting my time and my career to advancing others and their well-being. I’d be lying if I didn’t credit a lot of my interest in being a public servant to President Obama. I am so lucky to have grown up the past eight years with a president who has always empowered and encouraged young people to engage with the government. I am inspired to be a part of a group – in this case, the federal government – that impacts every single person living in this country and others around the world.

What are some of your leadership roles and activities around Georgia Tech’s campus?

I was formerly a part of Wreck, Tech’s awesome women’s Ultimate Frisbee team; headed the operations of 3 Day Startup, a business hackathon; and helped establish Spoon University, a journalism-focused club centered on food-related topics on our campus.

I am also an active member of Alpha Kappa Psi, the co-ed professional business fraternity. I have served as our chaplain, vice president of operations, and director of public relations, among others. This organization has shaped my college experience more than any other I have participated in. It has advanced my personal and professional growth and given me a community I can always rely on. If it wasn’t for AKPsi, there’s no way I would have had the confidence necessary to obtain the White House internship.

I am also in the process of starting a nonprofit organization on campus called Sunday Dinner Project (SDP). SDP will bring together groups of people with different perspectives or fundamentally opposing views over a meal to listen to each other and discover the commonalities they share.

Describe your role as an intern at the White House. What is your proudest accomplishment?

I was an intern for White House Operations. I tracked purchases and acquisitions of tens of thousands of dollars of goods and services. I also managed scheduling and logistics of 27 conference rooms serving over 5,000 employees and various stakeholders, triaged requests, and coordinated large events for senior staff members. My proudest accomplishment was my development of two supply chains that streamline the fulfillment of facilities requests and goods and services requests. The supply chains and process maps increased distribution and fulfillment efficiency of furniture, appliances, etc. across the entire White House campus.

What was your favorite experience from living in D.C.?

I was able to get tickets to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September 2016. It was powerful, educational, and moving, and had a lasting impact on the way I look at the past, present, and future. Anyone visiting D.C. should try to check it out and allot a solid chunk of time to fully immerse themselves in the museum.  

Did you get to meet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama? What was that experience like?

I did, and both experiences were insanely emotional. They are both huge role models for me, and I know they are important guiding lights in many lives around the country and the world. That made me feel inexplicably lucky to be in their presence. Both have an incomparable balance of being both strong and approachable, both preacher and listener.

The president met with all the interns and told us, “Be kind. Be useful. Be fearless.” Mrs. Obama inspired me to continue a career in public service, and she also spoke of her journey personally and professionally and shared with us some of the most important lessons she learned along the way.

Would you recommend the Federal Jackets program to fellow Georgia Tech students, and why?

Absolutely! I was offered an unpaid internship in an expensive city, and I knew that in order to afford the incredibly unique experience I needed to seek outside funding. If it wasn’t for the Federal Jackets Fellowship, I would not have been able to work at the White House at all.

The fellowship was the foundation of the most pivotal four months of my life – opening my eyes to the world of public service. It’s a great outlet for other Georgia Tech students to explore the impact they can have on the government with the support of the Institute behind them.

How has the program enhanced your experience as a Tech student?

The program has hugely enhanced my experience at Georgia Tech because it provided me with the exposure to a diverse group of non-engineering staffers, leaders, and interns who shared with me their personal paths to the White House. I learned more about the value of working with people who think differently and provide perspectives different than my own. It also provided me with more knowledge and unique insight about paths I can take post-graduation, whether that be within the federal government, local government, nonprofits, graduate school, or even the private sector.

What do you see as the role of engineers in public service?

We are impeccable problem solvers. We want to improve, innovate, and create a multitude of things and projects that benefit others. There is a huge space for us within the local, state, and federal government because public servants also want to improve, innovate, and create programs and policies that benefit others. I strongly recommend this Huffington Post article written by a former Stanford engineering student that specifically addresses “Why Public Service Needs Engineers and Scientists.”

As a CASA, Johnson will "help tell the Army story to the American public," according to a letter from Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning. 

Johnson, an alumnus of the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE), is also a retired major general, and he teaches at ISyE as a Faculty Leadership Fellow. 

On Jan. 9, he will attend an investiture ceremony for new CASAs at the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes. His role will also include raising support for soldiers and helping civilians understand Army policies.

In addition to 32 years of military service, Johnson’s career has included time as the NBA’s senior vice president for referee operations. He holds a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in operations research, a master’s degree in strategic planning from the School of Advanced Military Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and mathematics from the United States Military Academy at West Point.