Message from the Department Head
I joined the University of Minnesota as the Department Head of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) in July 2024. ISyE is a young department, about a dozen years old. In this short time, we have built a vibrant community of renowned scholars, exceptional teachers, amazing students, and dedicated staff. We are home to 18 faculty, about 200 undergraduate students, and about 90 graduate students. Three of these faculty members are scheduled to join in Fall 2024. ISyE is committed to supporting the well-being and professional growth of all its constituents.
Our faculty and students work on methodological problems in optimization and stochastic systems, with applications in manufacturing, healthcare, transportation and logistics, energy, and economics. You may find us working on treatment plans for cancer; matching algorithms for organ transplants; policies for housing allocation; optimizing power flow in energy grids; analyzing online markets; scheduling patient surgeries; and calculating pricing strategies. Regardless of the particular problem, we aspire to discover the mathematical theories that explain its salient features.
ISyE is entering a new era of growth in research, education, and service.
We have secured state-of-the-art facilities in Lind Hall. This area includes office and study spaces, classrooms, and graduate research labs. The department recently hosted the INFORMS MSOM conference with over 500 attendees, which was, by all accounts, a great success. ISyE hopes to continue to serve our professional community by leading such high-visibility events.
In collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the School of Statistics, and the School of Mathematics, we now offer a new bachelor’s degree in Data Science. ISyE recently launched an MS program in Data Science in Operations Research. We plan to recruit a diverse group of students in large numbers to these programs, and to maintain an emphasis on data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in our work. Our PhD student population is also steadily increasing. Our goal is to proportionally increase federal, state, and other funding to support these PhD students. As we grow, ISyE is working with our advisory boards and alumni to raise funds for undergraduate and graduate scholarships.
Our undergraduate students participate in hands-on capstone projects sponsored by local organizations, which helps them find a career after graduation. They are recruited by well-known employers such as 3M, Accenture, Boeing, Boston Scientific, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, Palantir, and Target. We hope to further expand this employer-base by adding more technology, finance, and sharing economy companies into the mix. ISyE’s location in a metropolitan area, with about 15 Fortune 500 companies and institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, is an advantage - collaboration opportunities are only a few steps away. We plan to leverage these to build new partnerships so that our work is informed by, and influences, industry practice.
The previous two department heads have laid a solid foundation for ISyE, placing it among the top 25 in the nation. With support from the College of Science and Engineering, ISyE intends to build upon this foundation and reach new heights of excellence.
We invite you to join us on this exciting journey!
Dr. Archis Ghate
Professor and Department Head
