ISE News and Events

Ning Zhang received first place in the Undergraduate Student Research Dissemination competition given at the 2019 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE) Annual Conference in Orlando, FL.  The award was given by IISE’s Operations Research division.  The award recognizes undergraduate researchers for their contributions to the field of industrial engineering and operations research, as well as their ability to communicate results effectively.  The award evaluation was based on both a written conference paper and an oral research presentation. 
In this feature article, Tom Willemain provokes a good deal of thought about the role of statistical models in supply chain forecasting, a field that he believes lags far behind finance in embracing algorithms over gut instinct. His article is followed by Commentaries from practitioners and researchers about the realities that can lead to "model failure" and the conditions for successful implementation of model-based decision making.
Ana Gabriela Duque is currently a junior Industrial & Management Engineer working on a research project along side Dr. Jennifer Pazour and Dr. Sergio Pequito called Toward Green Fashion Design: A Systems Engineer’s Perspective.
Congratulations to PhD student Orlando Rodrigues Romero for being selected as one of the inaugural IBM/RPI AI Horizons Scholars.  Orlando was one of the 11 selected out of 66 who applied. During the fellowship, Orlando seeks to use dynamical and control systems tools to analyze and design novel and efficient algorithms capable of performing unsupervised classification under non-stationary data sources.
Congratulations to PhD student Kaan Unnu in being selected to receive the Storage Manufacturers Association Honor Scholarship for the 2019/2020 academic year from the Material Handling Education Foundation, Inc. The Material Handling Education Foundation, Inc. (MHEFI) is an independent charitable organization that was established in 1976.

Institute News

Systems engineers and social scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) have been awarded $1.85 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Future of Work program.
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), through biomolecular research and testing, have discovered a potential topical therapeutic to treat monkeypox. 
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a “blanket” diagnosis applied to individuals with vastly differing behavioral as well as co-occurring medical conditions.  Using very large medical-record data sets, researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have found that, not only can children be broken into subgroups based upon those co-occurring conditions, but that those subgroups are also associated with differing maternal prenatal risk factors. The research is published today in the journal Autism Research.
Rensselaer Professor Jie Lian has been awarded $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Nuclear Energy University Research Program (NEUP) to conduct research and develop new materials that will make advanced nuclear reactors more resilient and economically efficient. Dr. Lian, the principle investigator of the project, will be joined by collaborators Rahul Rahul, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Suvranu De, Florida A&M University-Florida State University; Lu Cai, Idaho National Laboratory Program; Patrick Shower, GE Global Research Center; and Eric Brown, U.S.