New Kids on the Block - Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

IE HighlightsDr. Scarlett MillerDr. Necdet Serhat AybatPh.D., Industrial Engineering and OperationsResearch, Columbia UniversityResearch Areas: Large-scale optimization,convex optimization, compressive sensing, matrix rankminimization, medical imagingDr. Aybat was born inIstanbul, Turkey, and receivedhis B.S. and M.S. degreesin industrial engineeringfrom Bogazici University inIstanbul. In 2006 he movedto <strong>New</strong> York City and beganhis Ph.D. work at ColumbiaUniversity.He became interested in thefield of operations researchdue to his love of math andusing it to improve the qualityof life. “With the techniques used in OR, the scope of thingsyou can do is limitless,” said Aybat. “You can color your oldblack and white picture album or you can reduce the radiationexposure of a CT scan by more than 75 percent to diminish itsside effects on the patients.” Dr. Aybat hopes that the researchhe is able to conduct at Penn State will have a lasting impacton the welfare of society.In his field of operations research, Dr. Aybat sees many newexciting trends emerging. “Recent improvements in acquisitionand storage technology are allowing us to acquire moreaccurate and finer application-specific data, whether it is tickby-tickprice data from the stock market or frame-by-framehigh resolution images and videos from surveillance systems.Many important large-scale applications can be modeled asoptimization problems with millions of decision variables andvery often, the desired solution has lots of structure that weknow beforehand. Using the prior information on the solutionwe desire, and designing efficient, application specific optimizationalgorithms for large scale problems provides us withthe opportunity to improve our understanding of the application;and it is likely to result in effective solutions to manyimportant practical problems.”While Dr. Aybat says he misses the hustle and bustle of citylife, he’s enjoying a renewed connection to nature living inState College. When not working he enjoys traveling, playingbasketball and tennis and going to movies.Ph.D., Industrial and Enterprise SystemsEngineering, University of IllinoisResearch Areas: Human-computer interface,ergonomics, creativity and designDr. Miller comes to Penn Statefrom the University of Illinoiswhere she received her Ph.D.in the spring of 2011. Prior tothat, Dr. Miller received herB.S. and M.S. from the Universityof Nebraska. Despitebeing an “Air Force brat” andmoving around, she considersNebraska her home state andis a loyal Cornhusker.Dr. Miller says she alwaysknew she wanted to be anindustrial engineer because she was fascinated with bothengineering and psychology, leading her to the human factorsfield. Once she began her undergraduate program she knewshe wanted to be a professor. “There is something aboutresearch and working with students that really excites me,”she said. “I honestly think I have one of the best jobs in theworld because I get to conduct top-notch research that drivesthe future of the field and I get to work with and mentor ourfuture leaders.”Miller finds her field exhilarating because it is on the fringe ofso many different disciplines, including engineering, computerscience, information science, psychology and design. “Theemerging trend is to merge design processes in all of theseareas and better support the processes through technology.Coming together and identifying the innovation process andhow it effects company innovation, as well as how we teachstudents to innovate is a very hot topic.”At Penn State, Dr. Miller holds a joint appointment with theMarcus Department and the School of Engineering Design,Technology, and Professional Programs. She is also interestedin collaborating with companies and alumni for research andteaching purposes. In the spring she will teach a graduatecourse that takes company sponsored problems and givesthem to students to solve.Outside of the classroom, Dr. Miller enjoys sports, cookingand hiking in the Pennsylvania mountains.3