Industrial Engineering Students and Professors Recognized at IIE Banquet

Several University of Arkansas students and professors were honored at the 2012 Honors and Awards Presentation of the Institute of Industrial Engineers in June. The IIE awards banquet was co-hosted by industrial engineering department head Kim Needy, the IIE president-elect for 2012-2013.

Ronald L. Rardin, Distinguished Professor of industrial engineering and the holder of the John and Mary Lib White Systems Integration Chair, was recognized with the David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award. Professor Richard Cassady and professor Manuel Rossetti, holder of the John L. Imhoff Endowed Chair, were named IIE Fellows.

Doctoral student Lisa Thomas and her faculty mentor, Russ Meller, received the Best Paper Award in the Facility Logistics track for their paper titled “A Warehouse Model for Replenishment to a Bottom-level Forward Area with Random Storage,” which is part of Thomas’s doctoral dissertation. Meller is the holder of the James M. Hefley and Marie G. Hefley Endowed Professorship and Chair in Logistics and Entrepreneurship.

Faculty members Kellie Schneider, instructor in the Freshman Engineering Program, Ed Pohl, associate professor of industrial engineering, and Chase Rainwater, assistant professor of industrial engineering, were recognized for receiving the William A.J. Golomski Award in the Quality Control & Reliability Engineering Division. This award honors an outstanding paper from the the Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) which is authored or co-authored by a member of IIE.

In addition, Ridvan Gedik, a doctoral student working with Rainwater, received the E.J. Sierleja Memorial Fellowship, and doctoral student Jingjing Tong was awarded the Gilbreth Memorial Fellowship. Associate professor Heather Nachtmann is Tong’s faculty mentor.

Three undergraduate students were also recognized at this conference: Brent Wiles received the IIE Scholarship from the Council of Fellows; Sandra Carrasco received the John L. Imhoff Scholarship; and Megan Peters received the Lisa Zaken Award for Excellence.

“We are extremely pleased to see our deserving students and faculty members recognized at this level within the industrial engineering profession,” said Kim Needy, industrial engineering department head and holder of the Twenty-First Century Professorship in Engineering. “It brings notoriety and visibility to our program, the college and the university.”