FALL 2018 INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

IEMS TRANSFORMS ADVISING AND MENTORING FOR UNDERGRADUATES

New ‘GuIdE’ advising and mentoring system strengthens student connections to faculty, peers, and alumni

oo often, advising and group luncheons with a small group of mentoring meetings students and one faculty member mentor, and offer an environment for students reduce to discussions to ask questions, learn from their peers, on what courses to take and develop a connection to faculty that encourages additional conversations Tin upcoming academic quarters. Marita Labedz Poll throughout the year. A 2016-17 survey of students in Central to the department’s curriculum Northwestern Engineering’s Department redesign is Marita Labedz Poll, who of Industrial Engineering and Management joined the department in fall 2017 as an Sciences (IEMS) and anecdotal feedback academic adviser. Labedz Poll’s past from IEMS alumni reveal that many former experience includes serving as associate students wish they had taken advantage vice chancellor for student affairs and Advice from Marita Labedz Poll more fully of all that Northwestern has dean of students at the University of to undergraduate students: to offer, including the opportunity to learn Massachusetts, Boston, senior associate I always recommend that students from and interact with faculty outside dean of students at Lake Forest College, follow their interests and be the classroom. and assistant director of residence life at intentional about what they To increase the department’s focus on the University of Rochester. engage in, inside and outside of the faculty mentoring for its undergraduates, In 2018-19, IEMS will expand its classroom. Take time once a year IEMS introduced a new advising model roster of GuIdEs for undergraduates ‘‘to consider your opportunities in 2017-18. The system allows students to include “Peer GuIdEs” composed of because your interests will change. to meet with a staff academic adviser senior industrial engineering majors and Look broadly across Northwestern, to discuss curriculum matters, such as “Alumni GuIdEs” made up of department but don’t forget your connection to which courses to register for or a student’s alumni. The department believes the IEMS. Get to know your professors four-year plan, as well as a “Faculty GuIdE” new, comprehensive support system outside of class and learn about to address deeper discipline topics and of faculty, peers, and alumni will spark their interests and research. You career-related questions. Structured multi-directional connections and new won’t have this same opportunity Faculty GuIdE meetings are biannual opportunities. after graduation. FROM THE CHAIR

Dear friends all levels is evidenced throughout Mark Spearman, Wally Hopp, PhD from Stanford, joins us as an this newsletter. Assistant Chair Jill Don Frey, Barry Nelson, Bruce assistant professor. and colleagues, Wilson earned the 2018 Charles Ankenman, and now Mark Northwestern’s Center for Deering McCormick Distinguished Werwath. Our Master of Science in Optimization & Statistical Learning fter one year as chair Professor of Instruction award Analytics (MSiA) program, directed (OSL), along with Lehigh University, of the Department of earlier this year, one of five by Diego Klabjan, continues to be hosted the 11th US and Mexico A Industrial Engineering and University Teaching Awards a highly competitive, rigorous, and Workshop on Optimization and Management Sciences (IEMS) and awarded annually. Jill joins hands-on program at the intersec- its Applications in Huatulco, four years at Northwestern, my Professors Bruce Ankenman, tion of information technology and Mexico. The event included 30 respect for and pride in the depart- Barry Nelson, and Karen data engineering, machine learning participants from Northwestern, ment’s students, staff, faculty, and Smilowitz in receiving this honor, and data science, and business. Argonne National Laboratory, alumni continues to grow. In round a remarkable record of teaching We have a strong incoming class Columbia University, Johns numbers, one in five Northwestern excellence in the department. of 15 PhD students, including seven Hopkins University, NYU, Princeton, undergraduates is enrolled in the Congratulations to Professor women. Counting double majors Stanford, and more. McCormick School of Engineering. for winning the and both BS and MS degrees, our I hope you enjoy this newsletter, Of that total, more than 20 percent 2017 John von Neumann Theory new PhD students arrive with as it gives you a sampling of the of Northwestern Engineering Prize, the foremost theory prize backgrounds in mathematics activities at IEMS. I look forward to BS degrees are concentrated in in operations research. Previous and applied mathematics (11), connecting with many of you over industrial engineering (IE). This winners include legends such as industrial engineering, operations the coming year. is the highest percentage among , a PhD alumnus research, and analytics (7), the top ten industrial engineering and advisory board member; statistics (3), as well as applied programs in the country. IE at , the father of linear physics, mechanical engineering, Georgia Tech is second with about programming; Richard Bellman, psychology, and control science 18 percent of their engineering the founder of dynamic program- and engineering. degrees, while Purdue University, ming; and six Nobel Prize winners After hiring Matthew Plumlee University of Michigan, and Cornell including Ken Arrow, John Nash, and Zhaoran Wang last year as University follow in a range between and . assistant professors, we’re excited 13 to 14 percent. Our Masters of Engineering to welcome two more outstanding While IEs have a significant Management (MEM) program cele- hires: Simge Küçükyavuz, who footprint at Northwestern brated its 40th anniversary in June earned her PhD at the University Engineering, we value quality 2018. Over the years, MEM has of California Berkeley, joins us David Morton foremost, and the high quality of been led by truly distinguished col- as an associate professor, and David A. and Karen Richards Sachs our scholarship and innovation at leagues including Al Rubenstein, Chang-Han Rhee, who earned his Professor and Chair

Nocedal Receives John von Neumann Theory Prize

as the most prestigious theory prize in sciences. Nocedal officially received the By Amanda Morris operations research. prize at the annual INFORMS meeting in Nocedal shares the 2017 prize with Houston, Texas in October 2017. orge Nocedal, Donald Goldfarb, a professor at Columbia Nocedal’s research lies at the interface Walter P. University. The pair was cited for “their of computer science, operations research, Murphy fundamental contributions, theoretical and applied mathematics. He has made Professor and practical, that have, and continue to fundamental contributions to the theory Jof Industrial have, a significant impact on the field of of nonlinear optimization methods and Engineering and optimization.” created new algorithms for a variety of Management Sciences Named after John von Neumann — applications. His nonlinear optimization at Northwestern Jorge Nocedal a mathematician, pioneer in quantum software, KNITRO, is used in the energy, Engineering, has physics, and member of the Manhattan computer, and financial industries to received the John von Neumann Theory Project — the prize is awarded annually optimize everything from the design of Prize from the Institute for Operations to a scholar who has made fundamental, computer chips to the production and Research and the Management Sciences sustained contributions to theory in delivery of electricity. (INFORMS). The award is widely regarded operations research and the management

2 Northwestern University • McCormick School of Engineering MEM Program Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Attendees included students, alumni, faculty, and corporate guests

By Mark Werwath, MEM Director

he Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program celebrated its 40th anniversary on June 30 with an event that Tbrought together corporate guests, Guests attend MEM’s 40th anniversary event at Northwestern’s James L. Allen Center. students, alumni, faculty, and members of the IEEE Technology and Engineering and technologists can bring to the offering combining Internet of Things with Management Society. marketplace of ideas, products, and business opportunities, and a new course Northwestern Engineering’s John platforms. offering in product management. Rogers, the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Professor Barry Nelson, a past While MEM at Northwestern continues Querrey Professor of Materials Science director of MEM, concluded the event by to evolve and provide new examples of and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering presenting the history of the program. His how technology can enable innovation in and Neurological Surgery, showcased his presentation was a reminder of how rapidly business models and platform offerings, groundbreaking research and highlighted the MEM curriculum has innovated in just the tenets of MEM not only distinguish the the connection between technology the past year. Examples of such innovation program from traditional MBA programs, development and business development. include creating one of the first SCRUM but also trace back to MEM’s original roots. His talk illustrated the value proposition certification workshops held on campus to of MEM — the unique value that engineers bolster experiential learning, a new course

MEM Students Launch Startup that Makes a Difference

NUMiX technology lobal water quality has become a Energy Prize at the Rice Business Plan highly-publicized topic in recent Competition. The following month, we solidifies metals, years. Crises in Flint, Michigan, earned the top prize at Northwestern’s purifies water water scarcity in Cape Town, VentureCat, an annual competition where GSouth Africa, and harmful algal blooms 29 different student startups competed in the Great Lakes have fueled a public for a $30,000 grand prize. The awards have By Katie Kollhoff (MEM student) outcry for innovation in water treatment enabled us to support one co-founder and Matt Heise (MEM ’18) technologies that can keep water supplies working full-time on the project. We are in safe while also protecting the environment. the process of purchasing raw materials We launched NUMiX with the goal of and production and testing equipment so finding a way to help improve water quality. we can evaluate material performance with The startup leverages a Northwestern- potential early adopters of the technology. patented water purification product that We hope to scale rapidly to support a pilot works by solidifying dissolved toxic and by the end of next year. precious metals. By turning them solid, MEM has equipped the team with the metals are easily filtered and removed tools to creatively solve new and bigger so they can be disposed of or recovered, problems. We’ve received amazing support

The NUMiX team (from left): Jonathan Pfluger, leaving clean water behind. from MEM’s network of classmates, Laurelle Banta, Katie Kollhoff, Matt Heise, In April, NUMiX received the US alumni, and faculty and look forward to Olivia Lugar Department of Energy’s $50,000 Clean what’s next.

Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences • Fall 2018 3 IEMS 2018 GRADUATION

The McCormick School of Engineering graduated 780 master’s and 190 PhD students over three ceremonies in June in the Technological Institute. Undergraduates participated in the Northwestern ceremony at Ryan Field, where world-renowned soprano Renée Fleming provided the address for the 160th Annual Commencement. After the main commencement, IEMS also celebrated its undergraduates and PhDs in dedicated events.

PhD GRADUATES

In 2017-18, IEMS graduated 10 PhD candidates: Sina Ansari, Mehmet Basdere, Vikram Kilambi, Francisco Jara-Moroni, Alexandros Nathan, Jacqueline Ng, Baiyang Wang, Joseph Warfel, Papis Wongchaisuwat, and Chenguang Wu.

SENIOR CEREMONY

On June 22, IEMS held a department ceremony for 89 graduating seniors and their families and friends. The event highlighted special student awards and achievements and provided time for students to connect with faculty members and families and share their body of work through student-led presentations.

4 Northwestern University • McCormick School of Engineering FROM THE ASSISTANT CHAIR

advising resources to support and leverage for full-time job shared opportunities for continued Dear friends, students. Beginning this academic recruitment during their senior year. involvement in IEMS. In October year, students will have access to The Committee also recommended 2018, we held the second annual he last academic year alumni and peer mentors to provide expanding our probability and Young Alumni Reception at Five has brought a number of answers to questions that move statistics sequence from two & Dime in Evanston with more than T exciting changes to our beyond the direct experience quarters to a full year, with the 30 graduates in attendance. undergraduate program. We of our faculty. Through our work, addition of a statistical learning I continue to be both grateful improved the advising experience I have been reminded of just what requirement. I am grateful to and humbled by the interest of for our students, worked with a dedicated faculty we have who Bruce Ankenman, Barry Nelson, our alumni and friends in our faculty committee to improve our continue to devote substantial and Mark Werwath for the time undergraduate program. Thank you student design course, and began time and energy to ensuring high- they devoted to this work, and to for all the ways you support us. actively cultivating connections quality advising experiences for the faculty who devote time to and stronger relationships with our our students. advising senior design projects. young alumni. Charged by our chair, the We begin the new IE Client Project Marita Labedz Poll joined IEMS Designing Senior Design Committee Challenge course this year, which in September 2017 as our academic evaluated the IEMS Senior Design calls for twice as many projects to adviser. Since then, Marita has course, focusing on course goals accommodate juniors and seniors brought her considerable expertise and its placement within the in the transition. We could use your in student affairs and enthusiasm curriculum. This evaluation led help! If your company or nonprofit for understanding what motivates to condensing our two-quarter has a project that could benefit you engineering students to bear “Senior Design” experience into a and our students, please reach out on our advising processes. In single junior-year course called “IE at [email protected]. her short time in IEMS, she has Client Project Challenge.” Students In September 2017, we hosted 20 measurably increased student will experience client-facing graduates since 2012 at the Chicago Jill Wilson engagement outside the classroom projects they can further develop Athletic Club, where we learned Assistant Department Chair and developed or improved many during their summer internships about their career successes and for Undergraduate Studies

IEMS Reimagines Design Course Students tackle industry projects in ‘IE Client Project Challenge’

he process of working on projects for external clients is essential to the IEMS undergraduate curriculum. TFormerly called “Senior Design,” IEMS’ reimagined IE Client Project Challenge course tasks students to work in teams on a client-sponsored, open-ended project, leveraging both their creativity and industrial engineering skills learned Companies including FEW Spirits, AbbVie, and the Chicago Cubs have worked with students in the throughout their studies. IE Client Project Challenge course, formerly called Senior Design. Led by Professor Mark Werwath, the required course will be taken by junior To support cultivating organizational the course and to watch a video in which industrial engineering majors beginning partnerships for the course, the department past students and clients discuss their in the 2018-19 academic year. will host a series of Industrial Partner experiences, visit mccormick.northwestern. Kickoff Meet-and-Greet events with clients, edu/industrial/undergraduate-program/ students, and faculty. To learn more about client-project-challenge/.

Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences • Fall 2018 5 FACULTY NEWS SPONSORED AWARDS STUDENT NEWS

Karen Smilowitz led a team that won the Bruce Ankenman received a grant from Naval The Northwestern Student Chapter of INFORMS INFORMS Innovative Applications of Analytics Supply Systems Command Fleet Logistics Center received the INFORMS 2018 Student Chapter Award. She was also named associate editor titled “Gradient Based Criteria for Sequential Annual Award at the cum laude level. of the journal Operations Research and was Experiment Design.” appointed the James N. and Margie M. Krebs Sina Ansari was featured in an INFORMS Professor in Industrial Engineering and Noshir Contractor received an award from “What’s Your StORy?” interview in March, where Management Sciences. Raytheon BBN Technologies and DARPA for he discussed his research interests in patient his project “ACCESS – Agent-based Causal experiences in hospital emergency departments. Omid Nohadani received the 2018 Best Paper Simulator with Cognitive, Environmental, and Award from IISE Transactions on Healthcare Social System Factors.” Dipayan Banerjee was awarded a Northwestern Systems Engineering for his paper titled Summer Undergraduate Research Grant. He “Robust Optimization with Time-Dependent Seyed Iravani received funding from the National also received a scholarship from the INFORMS Uncertainty in Radiation Therapy.” Science Foundation for his project “Decision- Scholarship Committee to attend the annual Flow Queueing Networks for Analysis of INFORMS Conference, where he will present Jill Wilson received the Charles Deering Knowledge-Based Service Operations Systems.” “Reducing Bus Transportation Cost Through McCormick Distinguished Professor of School Start Time Optimization,” research based Instruction award, one of five University Diego Klabjan received three new awards this on joint work with PhD student Liwei Zeng and Teaching Awards for undergraduate education year from industry sponsors. He earned support faculty Karen Smilowitz and Jill Wilson. given annually at Northwestern. Bruce from AbbVie Inc. for “Risk Calculator,” Allstate Ankenman, Barry Nelson, and Karen Smilowitz Corporation for “Auto Claims Analysis from Moses Chan and Zhe Su each received the previously won the award. Video Frames,” and Semiconductor Research Arthur P. Hurter Award, given annually to the Corporation for “Unsupervised Data Extraction most outstanding first-year PhD student. Simge Küçükyavuz was named chair-elect of from Graphs and Data Plots.” INFORMS Computing Society and associate Connor Hanley, Hyo Joo Lee, Ipek Kirali, and editor of Mathematical Programming. Incoming faculty Simge Küçükyavuz was Alana Wertheimer received the department’s awarded funding from the National Science Thompson Senior Design Awards for “Lurie Noshir Contractor received the 2018 Foundation to support student travel to attend Children’s Hospital Clean Room Demand Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian the 2018 Mixed Integer Programming Workshop. Forecast and Staffing Model.”Peter Beer, Caleb Institute of Technology Madras. Ajit Tamhane Han, Batuhan Kesoglu, Erkan Kilic, and Sinan previously received the same award from the Tuna also received awards for “Enhancing Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Sanjay Mehrotra received funding for a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps project Experience at Phenix.” titled “I-Corps: Clinical Workforce Schedule Jorge Nocedal gave the MIT Distinguished Optimization Technology.” He also received Aditya Jain, Devon Buckingham, Batuhan Lecture in Computational Science and funding from the Office of Naval Research for Kesoglu, Mingren Wang, and Brian Saunders Engineering in February. “Properties and Methods for Distributionally received 2018 Academic Excellence Awards. Robust Optimization with Decision Dependent Jain also received the Hurter Award as the Barry Nelson delivered the 50th Anniversary Uncertainty.” most outstanding graduating senior. Keynote at the Winter Simulation Conference in December 2017. He also gave the 2018 Alan Jorge Nocedal received awards from Intel Jessica Li and Nikita Jain each received the B. Pritsker Scholars Distinguished Lecture at for “Stochastic Second Order Methods for IEMS Student Leadership Award. Purdue University and was a plenary speaker Machine Learning” and the Office of Naval at the 13th International Conference in Research for “Methods for High-Dimensional Monte Carlo & Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods Linda Pei received the Outstanding Teaching Nonlinear Optimization.” Along with co-principal Assistant Award. in Scientific Computing. investigator Ermin Wei, he also received a grant from the DARPA Lagrange program for “Novel Ed Malthouse gave a series of lectures on “Big Methods for Stochastic Data-Driven Nonconvex Likuan Qin received the Nemhauser Award for Data Analytics” to students from across Europe Optimization.” Best Dissertation for “The Recovery Theorem and on behalf of the Centre for Consumer Marketing Long-Term Factorization of the Pricing Kernel.” at the Stockholm School of Economics. He also received the Thomas P. Hustad Best Paper Ohad Perry received funding from the National Aaron Schecter earned the J. Richard Hackman Award from the Journal of Product Innovation Science Foundation for “GOALI: Modeling and Award for his PhD dissertation at INGRoup 2018. Management for his paper titled, “Identifying optimizing patient-flow dynamics in hospitals New Product Ideas: Waiting for the Wisdom of and hospital networks.” the Crowd or Screening Ideas in Real Time.” Kartikey Sharma received the Nemhauser Karen Smilowitz received two related awards Award for Best Paper for “Optimization Under Decision-Dependent Uncertainty.” A research team including David Morton from NSF: “Exploiting Network Structure in earned the 2018 ENRE Best Publication Routing Problems: Applications to School in Energy Award for the paper “Forward Bus Routing,” and “Participant Support Costs Jonathan Shenkman received the IEMS thresholds for operation of pumped-storage for Exploiting Network Structure in Routing Department Award for his dedicated work to stations in the real-time energy market.” He Problems,” used to fund the undergraduate the undergraduate program. also received the 2017 INFORMS Fellow Award. students and Evanston school district teachers collaborating on the project.

6 Northwestern University • McCormick School of Engineering ALUMNI NEWS IEMS WELCOMES James Utterback (BS ’63, MS ’65) received the 2018 IEMS Distinguished Alumni Award. He is the David J. McGrath, Jr. (1959) Professor McCARTER FELLOWS of Management and Innovation, Emeritus and professor of technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

DEPARTMENT NEWS

The department is excited to welcome four new postdoctoral fellows for 2018-19: Oscar Dowson, who received his PhD in engineering science from Auckland University; Merve Merakli, who received her PhD in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Washington; Reut Noham, who received her PhD in industrial engineering from Tel-Aviv University, and Hamed Rahimian, who received Frank Curtis and Bernardo Pagnoncelli his PhD in integrated systems engineering from The Ohio State University. he Patrick and Amy McCarter Fellow of nonlinear optimization, applied to in Residence program supports a problems in supervised machine learning. Cindy Nguyen joined the Master of Science in T visiting professor of instruction to Bernardo Pagnoncelli is serving as Analytics program as a program assistant. spend part or all of an academic year with the department’s McCarter Fellow for IEMS, teaching undergraduate courses 2018-19. He arrives on sabbatical from Lauren Jones joined the Master of Engineering and interacting with researchers. the School of Business at Adolfo Ibáñez Management program as a program assistant. Frank Curtis served as the inaugural University in Santiago, Chile, where he McCarter Fellow in 2017-18. A professor heads the school’s operations group. Simge Küçükyavuz joined the department as of industrial and systems engineering at Pagnoncelli earned his BS in pure an associate professor after holding the same position at the University of Washington. Her Lehigh University, Curtis earned his BS in mathematics and an MS and PhD in research expertise is in discrete and stochastic mathematics and computer science from applied mathematics, all from Pontifical optimization. The recipient of an NSF CAREER the College of William and Mary and an Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Award, she has deep technical expertise in MS and PhD in industrial engineering from Pagnoncelli will teach IEMS 313: polyhedral theory for integer programming, and Northwestern Engineering, where he was Foundations of Optimization, a a strong eye toward computation. advised by Professor Jorge Nocedal. required course in the undergraduate

Chang-Han Rhee joined the department as an Curtis co-taught the IEMS 351: curriculum. An advocate of experiential assistant professor after postdoctoral positions Optimization Methods in Data Science learning, he will also advise multiple at Georgia Tech and Centrum course with Professor Andreas Wächter. student projects in the IEMS 394: Client Wiskunde & Informatica in Amsterdam. In the course, students learned theoretical Project Challenge course. His research interests are in applied probability foundations and fundamental algorithms and simulation, including construction of more uniform experimental designs for computer experiments as well as analysis and simulation of heavy-tailed rare-events.

Colleen Sweeney Walker joined the department as a financial coordinator. Wasserstrom Lecture Explores Zhaoran Wang joined the department as an Air Transportation assistant professor after being hired in 2017 and working as a postdoctoral researcher with Cynthia Barnhart, chancellor and Ford Foundation Professor of Engineering Tencent’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. His research at MIT, presented “Air Transportation Optimization” as IEMS’s 2018 Wasserstrom expertise is at the interface of machine learning, Family Distinguished Lecture. Supported by the Wasserstrom Family Endowment, statistics, and optimization. Barnhart’s talk reviewed the history of operations research models in air transportation, describing how models have grown more sophisticated over time and the effects these advanced techniques have had on passengers, airlines, and the aviation system.

Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences • Fall 2018 7 Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Northwestern Technological Institute University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, Illinois 60208-3119

MSiA Students Collaborate with Chicago Botanic Garden and IBM

Students in the Master of Science in Analytics (MSiA) program use their data science skills to produce real solutions. This year, MSiA students Jamie Chen, Michael Gao, Ethel Zhang, and Wei Li participated in a pro bono project on behalf of the Chicago Botanic Garden. With nearly 50,000 members and more than 1 million yearly visitors, the Garden sought to leverage a systematic analytical approach to derive recommendations to engage its members and strengthen members’ connections with the Garden. Working with IBM, including data scientist and MSiA alumnus Ahsan Rehman (MS ’15), the student team conducted an From left: Chicago Botanic Garden’s Gwen Vanderburg, student Jamie exploratory data analysis to help the Garden better understand Chen, student Michael Gao, student Ethel Zhang, IBM’s Ahsan Rehman, its portfolio of members. They used data science techniques, IBM’s Andrew Warzecha, IBM’s Jane Chu, and Chicago Botanic Garden’s Carolynn Kotlarski. including clustering analysis, to discover natural groupings of members based on their past giving patterns. These insights could inspire future community outreach initiatives.