Message from the Chair

We are honored that USC alumnus Daniel J. Epstein has donated new gifts totaling $14 million to the department to bring cutting-edge facilities and significantly escalate the recruitment of exceptional professors. This will expand the department by seven new tenured and tenure-track faculty, bringing our total faculty members to 26. The department is actively recruiting faculty with expertise in the use of optimization, artificial intelligence, systems engineering and data analytics to solve society's most pressing problems. This gift will also support the relocation of the department in a new facility designed for collaboration and learning, and to promote innovation through modern, flexible spaces for conversation, networking, meeting and project-based teamwork. These gifts are part of $25 million in cumulative support that USC Trustee Daniel J. Epstein, BS ISE '62, has contributed to build capacity and expand impact in industrial and systems engineering research, teaching, and learning at USC.

Faculty Achievements

The department's students, faculty, and alumni have a rich tradition of making significant contributions to the profession and continue being recognized at the international level. A few noteworthy accomplishments during the past year include Professor Jong-Shi Pang being inducted into the National Academy of Engineering for his distinguished career and contributions to the development of methods to advance the theory and applications of optimization and operations research. Randy Hall being named Director of CREATE (Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies). Professor Hall served as Director of the center from 2003-2005 before being named Vice President of Research at USC. Professor Phebe Vayanos was awarded a 2021 NSF CAREER award for her research on algorithmic fairness, interpretability and robustness and its application to the problem of allocating scarce housing resources to those experiencing homelessness. Professor John Carlsson along with his collaborators from Shanghai University of Finance and Engineering and JD.COM, China's largest online retailer, were named finalist for the prestigious 2021 Franz Edelman Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) for their development of an optimization-based tracking system to accurately process orders for same day delivery and has reduced storage costs by 50%. Professor Neil Siegel was elected Fellow of the International Council of Systems Engineering (INCOSE) for his scientific contributions in systems engineering and management. Professor Julie Higle just recently successfully shepherd the hybrid Annual INFORMS Conference in Anaheim as General Chair.

New Faculty

We are pleased to announce two new faculty hires during the past year. Assistant Professor, Renyuan Xu, joins us after two years as a Hooke Research Fellow in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. Her research area is in stochastic control and game theory, with primary applications in social networks. Renyuan Xu received her Ph.D. from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at the University of California, Berkeley. We also hired Bruce Wilcox, Ph.D., as a Lecturer primarily to address the substantial increase in our analytics masters program. Prior to joining the department, Dr. Wilcox spent over 30 years with top-tier consulting firms in the information systems and advanced analytics software industries, most recently with SAS Institute.

Students and Alumni

ISE graduate and Epstein Department Advisory Board Member, Juan Perez, was honored with the Mark A. Stevens Distinguished Alumni Award, the top Alumni Award given by the school. Juan Perez is Chief Engineering and Information Officer for UPS and has been a driving force in UPS's evolution into advanced analytics, moving the company from a reliance on historical data to predictive and prescriptive analytics.

Three of our undergraduates were honored with Viterbi School of Engineering Awards. Hannah Mulroe won the 2021 Viterbi Award for Outstanding Achievement in Leadership for her work with the Trojan Shelter. Carlos Acosta won the 2021 Viterbi Outstanding Achievement by a Transfer Student Award for his academic performance and volunteer relief efforts for his home country, Venezuela. Stephanie Thrift won the 2021 Viterbi Women in Engineering (WIE) Award for her contributions to the female engineering community.

We invite you to explore some of our "greatest hits" during the past year, highlighted in this newsletter. Like USC as a whole, our commitment to excellence is evident in our state-of-the-art curriculum, distinguished faculty, and exceptional students. Please have a look and enjoy.

Maged Dessouky, Dean's Professor and Chair