USA Science & Engineering Festival

UT Arlington graduate students Shirish Rao and Hadis Anahideh from Industrial Engineering, Hoda Rahimi from Civil Engineering, and Takuma Mitani from Architecture were awarded a People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Phase I grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Pictured below are Takuma, Hoda, Hadis, and Shirish.

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This student competition grant provided funding to showcase their research using decision analytics in green building design at the EPA’s 14th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo.   The UT Arlington student team and IMSE faculty mentor Victoria Chen participated in the expo, which was held April 7-8 at the 2018 USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, DC.

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Their exhibit, entitled Better Buildings for Sustainability, included hands-on activities, software demonstrations, and Takuma’s own balsa wood building model.

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About 500 kids and adults kept them busy at their booth.  Kids were challenged to build a stable structure with toothpicks and mini-marshmallows, and the best structures were kept on display at the booth.

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Summer Quality Improvement and Patient Care Boot Camp

This summer the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) partnered with the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center to offer a summer Quality Improvement and Patient Care Boot Camp. In included 55 UTA engineering and nursing students along with UTSW medical students. The course was a 40-hour intensive training session on Quality Improvement tools followed by e-week live projects at UTSW Medical Center and Parkland Hospital. The projects were lead by the medical faculty and researchers from multiple departments and are part of a long term effort to improve the cost-effectiveness of medical services in the DFW area.

 

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New Ph.D Graduate Will Return Home and Find Solutions

A few years ago, Na Wang found problems in her career as a mechanical engineer in China. Now, Dr. Na Wang finds solutions through Industrial Engineering.

Na Wang earned her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the IMSE Department in the Spring 2015.
Na Wang earned her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the IMSE Department in the Spring 2015. //Photo provided

I am from the middle part of China. I received my Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from the North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power. I received my Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Science and Technology in Beijing. After graduation, I worked as a mechanical design engineer and was responsible for designing various types of equipment for a cold rolling production line.

Gradually, I felt there were some inefficiencies in the production line. However, I didn’t realize the root cause behind the inefficient phenomena at that time.

With my preliminary research, I found that studying Industrial Engineering would improve the inefficiencies.

Thus, I started my Ph.D study at UT Arlington’s IMSE department. After over four years of studying optimization under the supervision of Dr. Jay Rosenberger, I have learned the knowledge to make improvements in different applications. I have applied the knowledge in air traffic flow and pain management problems.

I will definitely miss the lovely environment in the IMSE department, and I will keep these precious memories forever.

My research interest is in statistical analysis, building prediction models, and optimization of MILP and MINLP models. I really enjoyed studying in the COSMOS Lab in the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department. My advisor, Dr. Jay Rosenberger, taught me so much. He is so knowledgeable and creative. In the past four years, his outstanding guidance made me feel that I was on a pleasant journey. I also learned a lot from Dr. Chen, Dr. Zeng, Dr. Corley, and Dr. Wang.

Other staff members in the IMSE department, like Julie, Kim and Richard always offered their help when I needed it. After finishing my Ph.D degree, I am planning to move back to China to be with my family.

Written by Na Wang

Na Wang graduated from the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Arlington in May 2015 with a Ph.D in Industrial Engineering.

RAID Labs’s Recent Activities and Upcoming Events

The RFID and Auto ID (RAID) Labs is the Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering Department’s newest lab. It was established in 2011 by Dr. Erick Jones and quickly proved to be the favored lab where experiments could be run by both undergraduates and PhD students alike. The lab focuses on supply chain logistics, engineering management-productivity, and RFID in the mechanical contracting industry-asset tracking development with current projects focused on areas of healthcare, factory lines, and phone apps to help identify RFID tags. RAID Labs has been very active this semester.

Recently, three topics have been started as themes for research, “RFID and automatic inventory control in the oil and gas industry,” “RFID medical devices used in vivo (inside the body),” and “RFID uses that promote Homeland Security.”  The lab has also had three papers accepted for publication this Fall that include two undergraduate students who have made author-level contributions, Harrison Armstrong and Walter Mulflur. These papers will be made available by pdf after final publication. Finally, RAID Labs staff promotions and lab shirts were recently distributed. Those Lab students who reached the E3 status received t-shirts; those who reached M2 status received blue shirts, and top level MI3 (manager and innovator 3) received black shirts.

Also, there will be an upcoming RFID Certification training and exam in December. The certification is backed by the International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA), the leading RFID certification in the country. The ISCEA RFIDSCM will be hosted by RAID Labs on December 6th – 8th, 2013. For those interested, UT Arlington IMSE students can receive a discount. Please follow-up with Harrison Armstrong, RAID Labs Center Manager.

If this type of research and experimentation interests you, you’re in luck! RAID Labs will be taking applications for the two-week training/evaluation process for working in the Labs for Spring 2014. There are only ten E1 positions available. Please ask any RAID Lab person where you can apply. RAID Labs is located at 411 Woolf Hall.