Congratulations to Kash Barker, an ISE professor, who has been elevated to the grade of IEEE senior member. The honor is bestowed only to those who have made significant contributions to the profession. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.
The University of Oklahoma announced the appointment of Teri K. Reed, Ph.D., as the inaugural director of the OU Polytechnic Institute. The OU Polytechnic Institute will be launching as a new school at OU-Tulsa, providing bachelor’s completion and graduate degree programs that will initially focus on cybersecurity, data science, software development, medical informatics, and advanced mobility/manufacturing. As director, Reed will oversee the design of those academic programs, develop the hiring strategy for the institute’s first wave of faculty, engage with industry stakeholders on curriculum and work with the OU Foundation to garner additional philanthropic support.
An OU alumna and internationally recognized leader in the field of engineering education, Reed taught at OU from 2000 to 2006, earning tenure as an associate professor in the School of Industrial Engineering. She also served as the College of Engineering’s associate dean of education during her time at OU. She has most recently worked at the University of Cincinnati, where she has served as assistant vice president of faculty research development, executive director of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, and professor of chemical engineering.
Read more about Dr. Reed and the OU Polytechnic Institute here: https://www.ou.edu/news/articles/2023/january/ou-names-inaugural-director-of-polytechnic-institute
In November, Randa Shehab, Ph.D., senior associate dean for the Gallogly College of Engineering and co-coordinator for the Data Science and Analytics Institute at the University of Oklahoma, was inducted into the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame. She was among 11 statewide honored as part of the 2022 Hall of Fame Class.
Shehab is the Nettie Vincent Boggs Professor, is a member of the OU ISE faculty, and was previously director of the School. She also earned all three of her degrees from the OU School of iSE.
More about Dean Shehab and her special recognition can be found here:
https://ouccoe100.blogspot.com/2023/01/shehab-inducted-into-oklahoma-higher.html
In November, deans from the Gallogly College of Engineering presented Cheryl Carney with the GCOE Superior Staff Award.
Carney has more than 30 years of service with OU, with most of those years dedicated to the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Carney is retiring from the School of ISE at the end of 2022.
Photo from left: John Klier, Carney, Randa Shehab, and Zahed Siddique.
After a competitive internal application process, the GCoE selected recipients for a chair and two professorships.
OU ISE Professor Kash Barker was awarded the John A. Meyers Professorship. Prof. Barker has been a faculty member in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering since 2008 and is a David L. Boren Professor and an Anadarko Petroleum Corporation Presidential Professor. He has an extensive publication record and is known for his work in operations research and risk analysis. He has served as an editor for several reputable journals and has recently received a Fulbright fellowship for spring 2023 in Finland. All of the PhD students he advised have gone on to positions in academia. He has received a significant amount of funding from multiple federal agencies and he also has an impressive number of collaborations with international universities.
Rachel Bennett, a Ph.D. student in the OU School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, received a student poster award at the inaugural Oklahoma Conference for Statistics, Biostatistics and Data Science.
Bennett's presentation, titled “Early Detection of Preeclampsia using a Scalable Deep Neural Network Algorithm,” focused on detecting signs of preeclampsia (high blood pressure or hypertension) during pregnancy using deep/machine learning.
Bennett conducted the research under Talayeh Razzaghi, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the OU School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Bennett shared her results at the conference and also received a cash award for her contributions.
