Industrial Engineering Students Recognized at Annual IIE Conference

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

Photo of Russell Meller, Lisa Thomas and Kim NeedyDoctoral 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 First-Year 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 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. This fellowship is available annually to a graduate student pursuing advanced studies in the area of transportation, with priority given to students focusing on rail transportation.

Doctoral student Jingjing Tong was awarded the Gilbreth Memorial Fellowship. Available to graduate students enrolled in any school in the United States and its territories, Canada and Mexico, this fellowship is awarded to graduate students pursuing an advanced degree in industrial engineering or its equivalent. 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 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.”

Release date: 6/29/2012