Two groups of students advised by Julie Swann, Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Associate Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and co-director of the Georgia Tech Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics, were awarded first place at the 22nd Annual Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Student Paper Competition.  The students were honored at the SAIC Award Banquet on November 8, 2011 at the Georgia Tech Hotel. Out of 105 paper submissions, there were six first place winners and five runner-ups.

Evan Saltzman, Seonghye Jeon, and Samina Jamil, master’s students in ISyE, won first place for their paper titled, “Quantitative Assessment of the World Health Organization Interagency Emergency Health Kit.”  The students completed the paper during the Public Impact Applications of OR and Management Sciences course, designed for master’s and PhD students to gain experience in modeling and solving problems with public impact, working on projects for or with particular organizations.

Morgan Doty, Bryce Dykes, Kathleen Hendrix, Ralph Long, Dana Lupuloff, Doug Meagh, Jeffrey Phillips, and Michael Vallecoccia, ISyE undergraduate students, also won first place for their paper, “Gwinnett County Public Schools: Improvements in Bus Logistics.” Guided by Swann, the students completed this paper as part of their required ISyE course, Senior Design, where they were also chosen as one of the top three finalists out of twenty-four Senior Design teams.

The SAIC annual student paper competition recognizes technical excellence at Georgia Tech and works to foster the development of closer ties between SAIC and the Institute. SAIC presented fifteen awards for outstanding technical papers in the fields of engineering, physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, computer sciences, medicine, and science and technology policy. SAIC is dedicated to the delivery of quality scientific and technical products and services contributing to the security and well-being of communities throughout the world.