Ise Viewbook 2019
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ISE VIEWBOOK 2019 Industrial Systems engineers engineers make things make better BETTER. THINGS. CONTENTS 1 Dedication 2 Student Album: Liftoff RESEARCH: SYSTEMS AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING The Department of Industrial 4 The 2 Wings of ISE and Enterprise Systems Engi- 6 It’s Getting Easier to Be Green neering (ISE) at the University 7 Tracking Epidemics and “Good Infections” of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 8 Waiting Rooms in Cyberspace innovates the engineering 9 Just What the Doctor Ordered discipline with forward-think- 10 Balancing Acts ing research and scientific STUDENT NEWS discoveries; serves education, industry, and society; educates 11 Research Experience for Undergrads a new generation of leaders 12 Alex Wittinger: Born to block in general, systems, industrial, 13 Excellence in Teaching 14 ISE @ IISE-Orlando and financial engineering. 15 Alex Darragh: The blue and orange rocket 16 Student Album: At home and abroad ALUMNI NEWS ISE Student Viewbook is edited by William Gillespie. Additional photography by Heidi 18 Brian Truesdale Craddock, Thompson McClellan, and L. Brian 19 Koji Intlekofer Stauffer. Illustration and design by Miriam 20 Tracey Meares Martincic. 21 Michael O’Connor and Laura Albert Readers, alumni, students: contact us at: [email protected] 22 Senior Engineering Projects The University of Illinois is an equal oppor- 24 S.E.P. Poster Winners tunity, affirmative action institution. Printed 25 Student Awards on recycled paper with soy-based ink. 12.038 26 Graduates 28 Contact 29 T2: Transportation Transformation Recognize this building? Turn to page 29. In this building, in the fires of calculus and caffeine, engineers were minted and sent forth to conduct the world. ISE Class of 2019, cleared for liftoff! ise.illinois.edu 2019 STUDENT VIEWBOOK 1 2 STUDENTS Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois ise.illinois.edu 2019 STUDENT VIEWBOOK 3 The 2 WINGS of BY DOUG PETERSON ISE T’S EASY TO MISS when you enter the Transportation Build- ing on Mathews Av- Ienue, the home of ISE. But if you look closely, you’ll see images of railroads on the walls and railings. As you approach the main entrance, direct your eyes to the roofline, and you’ll see 4 winged loco- motive wheels carved in stone, with 2 more winged wheels on the north side of the building and 1 on the south. Even the hand- rails on the banisters in- side carry the design of a train wheel. 4 RESEARCH Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois The railroad imagery is there because the De- catch-phrases help to distinguish between the 2 partment of Railway Engineering was once housed wings. in the Transportation Building. Today, the railway Systems engineers make better things. department is long gone, and the Transportation Industrial engineers make things better. Building is now home to ISE. But these symbols are In other words, systems engineers develop new a reminder that technology is constantly evolving systems and new ways of doing things, while indus- and so are departments, including ISE. trial engineers take existing systems and improve ISE’s last major transformation came in the them at a new level. spring of 2006, when the College of Engineering “Think of it this way,” Kim says. “If you have a Systems engineers make better THINGS. Industrial engineers make things BETTER. decided to combine the Department of General gas-powered engine, industrial engineers will find Engineering (established in 1952) with the college’s ways to improve it.” Systems engineers might go industrial engineering program. Like the 2 wings in an entirely new direction, developing an engine depicted on the building’s locomotive wheels, this using renewable energy. merger brought together 2 important realms of The following stories focus on research from both engineering—industrial engineering and systems wings of the department—systems engineering engineering. (making better things) and industrial engineering “When I was thinking of coming to Illinois, there (making things better). However, some of the profes- was chatter about this brand-new department called sors featured in these stories, such as Carolyn Beck, ISE,” recalls Harrison Kim, an ISE professor. “So, as I split their research between systems and industrial was considering options for my career, I knew that engineering. Illinois was a top engineering program, and now According to Beck, “Optimization is a big part of they were creating a new department. When would ISE’s work—trying to make things perform as well I have an opportunity like this again?” as they can. For instance, we have people looking Kim joined ISE in 2005 as one of the inaugural at optimization in respect to financial process, and members of the new department, and he never that was fairly original. looked back. “The department is going in a lot of new direc- There is a lot of overlap between both parts tions,” she adds. But continual change is precisely of ISE—systems engineering and industrial en- what makes a dynamic system. It’s also what makes gineering—but Kim says that the department’s a dynamic department. ise.illinois.edu 2019 STUDENT VIEWBOOK 5 REEN IS THE COLOR of both money will emit 1.3 kilograms equivalent of CO2 over the and the environment, but the 2 are not equipment’s lifespan, while another design will emit mutually exclusive, says Harrison Kim, 1.5 kilograms equivalent. GISE professor. For the past 14 years at What’s more, Kim’s system makes it possible to Illinois, Kim’s lab has been pioneering and refining do this calculation in minutes. a methodology that helps manufacturers design “An analysis that used to take 6 months to do now machines and devices that are both profitable and takes only 6 minutes,” he says. more environmentally sustainable. This groundbreaking methodology earned Kim “Our team calls it Green Profit Design,” Kim says. “Companies need to be green and make money at the same time.” It’s Getting Easier to “Our team calls it Green Profit Design,” Kim says. a John Deere Supplier Innovation Award in 2015—a “When companies go green simply to boost their major award that the company had never given to a Be Green public image, it’s not going to work. Companies university research partner before. Each week, Kim’s need to be green and make money at the same time.” team has a conference call with Deere managers to Kim’s methodology can be talk about product development used for designing products of and manufacturing from the all types, from cellphones that fit perspective of environmental in your pocket to large-scale farm sustainability. machinery and even airplanes. In fact, Kim’s Green “Every product generates an environmental Profit Design has been embraced by John Deere, footprint over its lifespan,” Kim says. Therefore, the farm machinery giant known for its green-col- his methodology takes into account energy con- ored equipment. Deere product designers use sumption over a product’s life, and it even factors Kim’s methodology to calculate in energy used during the manufacturing process. the environmental impact of a machine over its entire lifespan. READ THE FULL ARTICLES ONLINE: “Our methodology can calcu- ise.illinois.edu/newsroom late a machine’s global-warming potential, or GWP,” he says. For instance, their system might Harrison Kim determine that 1 machine design 6 RESEARCH Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering at the University of Illinois Tracking Epidemics and “Good Infections” Carolyn Beck has been probing how epidemic processes work, and her models can be applied EASLES WAS OFFICIALLY erad- icated from the United States in 2000, to diseases of all types, as well as to computer and yet 2019 has emerged as the worst viruses or even the spread of “fake news.” Myear for measles outbreaks in 25 years. For the past 6 years, ISE professor Carolyn Beck has been probing how epidemic processes work, and her models can be applied to diseases of all the spread of a tweet on a social network. What’s more dynamic model, in which the population is types, as well as to computer viruses or even the more, marketing people can use these models to constantly changing and moving. spread of “fake news.” track the dissemination of their products. “My greatest pride is in my students—where “Our epidemic models are based on network “Marketers want to know the parameters under they have gone and what they have done,” Beck structures,” Beck says. “Humans form what are called which they can be assured their idea or product says. For example, some of her students work on human contact networks. So will rapidly disseminate over a network,” she says. “clustering algorithms,” which break Big Data into we’ve been looking at how epi- For them, the spread of their product is a type of more manageable subgroups. After researching demics spread on these human “good infection.” clustering algorithms in Beck’s lab, some of her networks, which are constantly Beck says that over the years numerous research students went on to apply these techniques at changing. Also, we consider papers have analyzed these kinds of network pro- Facebook and Amazon. how interconnected different cesses, but in most cases the scenarios being studied In a sense, her students form a dynamic network people are and how strong their are static. But Beck is looking at dynamic networks all their own, spreading the influence of what they Carolyn Beck connections are.” that are constantly morphing over time—such as accomplished at Beck’s lab all across the country— Although this work focuses on disease epidemics, an ever-changing disease process. another example of a “good infection.” Beck says the models can be used with many other In the past, she points out, if you had a static processes that spread and evolve over network network and the ratio of the infection rate to the READ THE FULL ARTICLES ONLINE: structures.