Message from the Chair

I am honored to be Chair of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The historic $25 million gift to our department over the past two decades has transformed research and teaching in industrial and systems engineering at the University of Southern California. In 2002, we became the first named academic department at the university thanks to the generosity of the Founder of ConAm Management Corporation, Daniel Epstein. Over the past year, with the ongoing support of this gift, we have been continuing to recruit outstanding faculty as we plan for our move into a state-of-the-art building to house the department at the University Park Campus.

This year, we welcomed the renewal of the USC-Meta Center for Research and Education in AI and Learning (REAL@USC). With the exponential evolution of the AI landscape, REAL@USC has been rapidly expanding its focus in critical AI research areas such as privacy, large language models (LLMs), and how to efficiently train complex LLMs while reducing the carbon footprint of AI.

We are proud that our department will be home to a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary PhD certificate in Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research, supported by a $2.9 million National Research Traineeship (NRT) grant from the National Science Foundation. The new program will be a collaboration with the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, under the leadership of Phebe Vayanos and Bistra Dilkina.

USC's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies this year celebrated its 20th anniversary, marking it with a symposium headlined by Michael Chertoff, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. CREATE is led by Randolph Hall, Dean's Professor in the Epstein Department.

New Faculty

We are excited to welcome three exceptional new faculty hires to our department.

Johannes Royset, a senior faculty member with expertise in optimization and decision-making under uncertainty, joined us at the start of 2024. We also welcome our new assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, Camilo Hernández, an expert in stochastic control and behavioral economics. Meanwhile, Tao Ma joins our department as a Senior Lecturer, bringing a wealth of expertise in transportation systems and data analytics.

Faculty Achievements

Our faculty had many noteworthy accomplishments during the past year. Andrés Gómez was recognized with the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, supporting his research into mixed-integer nonlinear programming problems. John Carlsson and Han Yu were 2024 finalists in the Wagner Prize at this year's INFORMS Annual Meeting, with research that has streamlined last-mile delivery challenges for leading Southeast Asian logistics provider Ninja Van.

Neil Siegel was named by USC as a Professor of Engineering Practice with Distinction. This comes in the wake of Siegel being honored at the White House with the nation's highest honor for technological achievement, the 2023 National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Petros Ioannou was presented with USC's highest honor — a University Professorship, while Sheldon Ross was honored with the 2024 TAA Textbook Award.

Victoria Stodden was recently announced as a 2024 recipient of Germany's Humboldt Prize, as well as the Professor Maurice H. Belz Visiting Scholar Award from the University of Melbourne. Ketan Salva was awarded the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)– Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) Outstanding Application Award.

Student Achievements

Our department is fortunate to be home to a talented cohort of students. A number of them were recently recognized for their outstanding achievements.

PhD student in Qiang Huang's Lab, Weizhi Lin, was honored at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, winning the QSR Best Poster Competition, while Han Yu was also honored with an outstanding paper award from the Freight SIG of the INFORMS TSL Society. Our fourth-year ISE student, Yiwen Cao, was honored with the prestigious Bruce Schackman Award at the 2024 Society for Medical Decision-Making Conference.

Class of 2024 ISE graduate Shelby Wu was honored with two Outstanding Achievement in Leadership Awards from USC Viterbi. Cinthia Sanchez Alvarado was recognized for her extraordinary outreach efforts with the 2024 Viterbi Community Impact Award, and the Viterbi Award for Women in Engineering. Meanwhile, Kuofu Liu received the 2024 USC Viterbi Undergraduate Research Award.

Please enjoy more highlights from our past year, featured in our newsletter below. Like USC as a whole, our commitment to excellence is evident in our state-of-the-art curriculum, distinguished faculty, and exceptional students.

Maged Dessouky, Dean's Professor and Chair