UF ISE Annual Magazine 2022

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

I am very pleased to deliver this year’s ISE department magazine with coverage of our curriculum developments, research progress and student achievements. In this issue, we are highlighting the revision of our undergraduate curriculum, including a new emphasis on data analytics training and three focus areas in “Data Analytics & Operations Research,” “Health & Human Systems” and “Production & Manufacturing Systems.” The updated version of the curriculum allows for ISE students to completely customize their senior year of study.

Regarding research, this year the department had several unique grants and in this issue we cover new DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) projects. In addition, faculty received new NSF, NIH and ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy program) funding for work on AI and optimization methods in traffic network congestion modeling (M. Reisi), microsimulation of lung cancer screening processes (M. Alvarado) and algorithms for unit commitment problems (Y. Guan). Collectively, these projects have contributed to a relatively stable monthly active award level of $4.1M throughout the year. Each project has also provided support for new Ph.D. students and has contributed to the growth of the department’s Ph.D. program.

As for student accomplishments, the department awarded $34K in scholarships this year, including 17 undergraduate, two masters and seven Ph.D. student awards with recognitions for outstanding ISE graduate assistant teaching and research. Two seniors, Lia Frumenti and Haley Scites, placed second in the “Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Case Competition” among a total of 32 collegiate teams. Another senior, Isabella Campbell, received the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering’s Attributes of a Gator Engineer Award for her “Service to the Global Community” and was inducted into the UF Student Hall of Fame 2022 class. We are tremendously proud of all our students’ accomplishments.

Beyond these accomplishments, the department reflected on its vision and commitment to being “an originator of world-class and comprehensive ISE education and research training for future leaders of industry and academia” by providing coverage of the breadth of our discipline. To achieve this vision, one aspect of our mission was to recruit outstanding and diverse faculty in critical methodological and demanding application areas. UF ISE managed to achieve its long-term, five-year faculty hiring goal in a four-year time frame.

This fall, Hamed Amini, Ph.D., is joining us as an associate professor to contribute to our quantitative finance area. Minhee Kim, Ph.D., is joining us as an assistant professor, and will contribute to our quality, statistics and reliability area. Jorge Sefair, Ph.D., will be joining us as an associate professor and will add to our expertise in operations research, specifically mixed integer programming methods. We are also in the process of hiring another senior member for our “AI in Complex Systems” opening. We are very excited about these new faculty joining our growing team and contributing to the department to further achieve the vision of being a broad-based ISE department focused on the highest-quality student academic and research training.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to ISE regarding your recent accomplishments and points of pride.

Sincerely and GO GATORS!

David Kaber

David

Kaber, Ph.D. Department Chair, Dean’s Leadership Professor

CAMMY R. ABERNATHY, PH.D. Dean, Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering

DAVID KABER, PH.D. Dean’s Leadership Professor & Department Chair

G.

IMPROVING FOOD SECURITY WITH ROBOTIC POLLINATORS

Boyi Hu, Ph.D. , an assistant professor, has received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture in support of his collaborative research on building robotic pollinators to improve overall food security.

Dr. Hu and Yu Gu, Ph.D., an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering from West Virginia University, are working to develop a six-armed precision robotic pollinator, known as StickBug, to counteract this problem. These robotic pollinators are believed to be able to supplement insect pollinators and improve food safety.

“Instead of developing these robots as bee replacements, we see them as a ‘plan B,’ which is for improved food security during insect declines, supporting indoor agriculture, and providing services beyond what insects can do,” Dr. Hu said.

The goal of the StickBug pollinator is to: aid growers and help them overcome the shortage of natural pollinators that are needed for improved productivity; and provide opportunities for higher food production profits by controlling pollination schedules. StickBug will also allow for selective pollination and better management of crops by timing and tracking pollinated flower growth.

NEW FACULTY JOIN THE DEPARTMENT IN FALL 2022

Dr. Amini’s research interests include quantitative modeling in finance based on the need to understand and manage systemic and liquidity risks. His most recent work focuses on FinTech, machine learning, and blockchain economics.

Minhee Kim, Ph.D. Assistant Professor

Dr. Kim’s research focuses on data analytics for status modeling, inference, and prediction in smart and connected systems with applications in advanced manufacturing, nuclear energy, and healthcare.

Sefair, Ph.D. Associate Professor

Dr. Sefair’s research interests include network optimization, multistage optimization, and integer programming.

The Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering welcomes three new faculty, Hamed Amini, Ph.D., Minhee Kim, Ph.D., and Jorge Sefair, Ph.D., who will join the department this fall.

Hamed Amini, Ph.D. Associate Professor

Jorge

Boyi Hu, Ph.D.

UF ENGINEERS USE AUGMENTED REALITY TO AID IN EXTREME TASKS

David Kaber, Ph.D. , the Dean’s Leadership Professor and department chair, has received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in support of his research to use augmented reality (AR) to aid in operational tasks conducted in extreme environments.

The project will utilize multiple lightweight wearable devices, including a smartwatch and eye-tracking glasses, to measure operators’ heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, eye blink rate, and pupil size. This data will then be used to develop an algorithm that will determine cognitive arousal and workload during a target task performance.

Based on the assessment of the operator’s physical and physiological state and stress levels, AR devices (headsets) will be employed to provide knowledge-task guidance in real-time to aid the operator with the task at hand.

This new technology will have a broad impact in that it can be used by civilian operators as well as the armed forces as they engage in high-complexity tasks in adverse environments, such as military helicopter pilot checklist completion and Army field-medic care triage for soldier amputee cases.

2 FACULTY MEMBERS RETIRE AFTER YEARS OF SERVICE

This year, two senior faculty retired from the department, including Panos Pardalos, Ph.D. , and Suleyman Tufekci, Ph.D. In October 2021, the department celebrated the two faculty members to commemorate their many years of success.

From left: Panos Pardalos, Ph.D., and Suleyman Tufekci, Ph.D.

UF ISE REVAMPS UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM TO ENHANCE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Over the last several years, the Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE) discipline has expanded into various multidisciplinary areas such as data analytics and health and human systems. As a result of this expansion, the University of Florida ISE Department has recently completed an overhaul of the undergraduate curriculum offered to students.

This revision began back in 2018 with the goal of developing a curriculum that was flexible and student-centered. The department’s main objectives included giving students the opportunity to customize their course structure to better accommodate their interests and increasing the breadth of ISE topics offered. The department also wanted the curriculum to allow for a flexible development of skills, while encouraging students to pursue additional certificates and minors, and adequately preparing them for careers in industry or graduate studies.

“The expansion of our undergraduate curriculum in breadth and depth is intended to promote the competitiveness of ISE graduates for industry positions, which are primarily in manufacturing and production systems and, to some extent, operations research and human factors and ergonomics,” said David Kaber, Ph.D., ISE department chair.

To accomplish this, the department organized ISE-specific courses into two groups: core and focus areas. Core areas cover the fundamentals of discipline, including operations research, lean production systems, decision support systems, and simulation and analysis, and introduce students to new sub-disciplines such as Data Analysis for Industrial Applications and Human Systems Engineering.

The newly proposed ISE focus areas cover an in-depth study of all ISE sub-disciplines. Currently, the department offers three focus areas in Data Analytics and Operations Research, Health and Human Systems Engineering, and Production and Logistics Systems. Students are free to choose any one of these focus areas according to their interests and career-related objectives.

The data analytics focus area is designed to develop student skills in applied statistics and use of software for statistical modeling to recommend optimal system design solutions. Industry is currently seeking engineers with the capabilities to handle and process massive data sets, to perform statistical aggregation and to deliver this information for management decisionmaking.

Courses in human systems engineering will teach students how to apply human factors science to the analysis, design and evaluation of human-technology systems. The increasing prevalence of human and AI teaming in complex domains, such as healthcare, aviation, power systems, military operations and space, demands engineer capabilities to translate human-performance data to system-design solutions.

The knowledge of production and logistics enables students to analyze, understand, and manage operations of manufacturing/production or service organizations through inventory control models, demand forecasting models, queuing models and more. The current impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on world supply chains has further emphasized the critical importance of optimizing logistic systems and therefore the need to offer this area in the curriculum.

In addition to their chosen specialization, students are also required to choose at least one course from each of the other focus areas. To provide various options to students, the ISE department increased the number of elective courses offered by 80%, as electives provide additional flexibility for students, allowing them to develop various skills in a myriad of areas.

“The ISE curriculum revision defines a contemporary core for the degree program and emphasizes student specialization to stand out in a highly competitive job market. The students coming to UF have very high academic credentials, and they are seeking interesting, challenging and highly applicable curricula as a basis for their careers,” Dr. Kaber said. “We need to be competitive in attracting these students to the ISE discipline and our department in order to address the demands of industry and to further the presence of ISE across a range of organizations.”

ISE STUDENTS EARN 2ND PLACE IN FIFTH ANNUAL LOCKHEED MARTIN NATIONAL ENGINEERING ETHICS

COMPETITION

From left: David Kaber, Ph.D., Bill McElroy, P.E., Haley Scites, Lia Frumenti, and Cammy Abernathy, Ph.D., dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.

Two industrial engineering students set the bar high for future UF teams participating in the annual Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Case Competition, as they secured a second-place finish among 31 collegiate teams from across the nation. Sponsor Lockheed Martin awarded UF engineering seniors Lia Frumenti and Haley Scites $750 each for their two-day task to present the most ethical engineering solutions to a complex scenario proposed by the tournament officials.

Competitors were given a complex case scenario involving two companies with assets in space that were on a potential collision course. The teams were seeded according to their preliminary 15-minute presentation, demonstrating their understanding of the ethical, engineering and business issues involved with the case. The next round involved a series of “real-world,” head-to-head competitions where the two-person teams represented one of the randomly assigned companies to argue their company’s position —based on the ethical, engineering and business issues —negotiating a solution in an emergency meeting called by the mythical “International Satellite Collision Avoidance Agency.”

The tournament involved double-elimination rounds in either a winner or consolation (1-loss) bracket, with Lockheed-Martin judges determining the winners of each round. In later rounds, updated information about the case was provided that further impacted a company’s options and decisions.

STUDENT NAMED TO 2022 UF HALL OF FAME

Undergraduate student, Isabella Campbell , was selected for the 2022 UF Hall of Fame class. This is the highest recognition give to student leaders at UF who show superior leadership and achievement through their campus activities.

SENIOR DESIGN STUDENTS VISIT STATE CAPITOL

Last Spring, students from the department were invited by the Florida Department of Management Services (DMS) to tour the State Capitol building and additional government facilities. The invitation followed the completion of three ISE senior design final course projects where ISE partnered with DMS.

STUDENT PLACES 3RD IN LOCAL COMPETITION

Graduate student, Haolan Zheng , placed 3rd in the Oak Hammock Institute for Learning in Retirement Robert A. Levitt Awards for Student Research on Aging Competition. This is an annual poster competition in which students are tasked with developing solutions to a variety of topics. Zheng’s project focused on training older adults about using adaptive cruise control systems, for which he received a monetary prize.

ALUMNI SPEAKS AT SPRING 2022 RECOGNITION CEREMONY

With more than 30 years in the technology services industry, Rodney Rogers is recognized as a successful serial entrepreneur and expert technologist.

Rogers co-founded Virtustream in 2009, an enterprise cloud computing company, and was chairman and CEO prior to its acquisition by EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) in 2015 for $1.2 billion.

Prior to Virtustream, Rogers was co-founder, chairman and CEO of Adjoined. From its inception in 2000 through its acquisition by Kanbay (NASDQ: KBAY) in 2006, Adjoined was known as one of the fastest-growing IT services companies in the U.S.

Today, Rogers operates as a founding partner of the Blue Lagoon Companies. Rogers currently serves as Chairman of the Board for Lemongrass Ltd., and UnitedLex, Inc., as Lead Board Director for beep, Inc., and as a Board Director for revenue analytics, Inc. and Agrematch Ltd.

TWO ALUMNI RECEIVE LEADERSHIP AWARD FROM DEPARTMENT

SCOTT FIGURA (B.S. 1983)

Scott Figura is a Class of 1983 UF ISE graduate with many years of operations experience. First as an officer in the U.S. Navy, then transitioned to the Food & Beverage industry where he worked for Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola in all areas of Operations for over 30 years.

Figura’s last corporate role was with Coca-Cola’s International Supply Chain team where he supported bottling operations around the world. Figura is the architect for their global capability development program that focused on building a talent pipeline to support future growth.

HUNTER JONES (B.S. 1980)

Hunter Jones retired from Cameron International in 2020 after holding the position of President, Cameron Drilling Systems for six years preceded by four years in the role of Vice President, Enterprise Services and Chief Information Officer.

Jones began his career in the General Electric Manufacturing Management Program advancing to plant manager and supply chain leadership positions in Aerospace and Gas Turbines during his 15 years with the company.

From left: Hunter Jones, David Kaber, Scott Figura

UF OEM ALUMNA IMPLEMENTS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT AT VALENCIA COLLEGE

From left: Kathleen Plinske, Ed.D., Mengyu Li, Ph.D., Mostafa Reisi Gahrooei, Ph.D., and Patsy Messinger

On a recent visit to Valencia College’s Poinciana campus in Kissimmee, Fla., U.S. Rep. Darren Soto announced a $500,000 federally funded project that will support a solar energy system proposed to reduce campus utility costs. Valencia College also plans to match these funds to support the project.

This project was developed, in part, by a recent graduate of the Outreach Engineering Management (OEM) Program at the University of Florida. Kathleen Plinske, Ed.D. , who is Valencia College’s current president, graduated from OEM in May 2021. During her final project in the program, Dr. Plinske explored how to utilize various analytics techniques and ISE tools such as building simulation modeling, data analytics, and stochastic modeling to enhance the sustainability efforts at Valencia College, where she served as the college’s executive vice president and provost at the time.

“When the Valencia College Poinciana Campus opened in 2017, it was designed to be net-zero capable, with an explicit commitment to environmental sustainability. When exploring capstone project possibilities with Dr. Reisi, our OEM/ISE capstone mentor, I learned that he had expertise in evaluating the optimal time to invest in residential solar energy systems. He agreed to work with our capstone group on modifying his models to identify the optimal time to invest in solar energy for a college campus, namely our Poinciana Campus,” Dr. Plinske said.

As president, Dr. Plinske is committed to the campus goal of reducing Valencia College’s greenhouse gas emissions and achieving carbon neutrality by the year 2050. This goal also aligns with Osceola County’s mission to reduce the risks of climate change by investing in sustainable development plans for new construction with the hope that existing buildings will follow suit.

The proposed campus solar panels will not only have significant environmental benefits but will also serve students attending Valencia’s Poinciana campus, develop more jobs, and modernize the district’s current infrastructure (Soto, 2022).

UF ISE RECOGNIZES STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS AT THE SPRING AWARDS CELEBRATION

The UF ISE Department awarded 28 undergraduate and graduate scholarships in Spring 2022. Students were recognized at the annual end of the year banquet.