CAREER Awards Abound for ISyE Statistics Group

In rapid succession, five assistant professors in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) have earned the NSF (National Science Foundation) CAREER Award in the last four years.

Two were named as award recipients this year. All five were recruited by and brought to Tech by ISyE Professor Jeff Wu, who joined Georgia Tech in 2003 as the Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics. Wu also was able to fill five assistant professor slots—one each year. By 2008, Wu had found the junior faculty he wanted for these positions in members Nagi Gebraeel, Yajun Mei, Nicoleta Serban, Roshan Joseph Vengazihiyil and Ming Yuan.

• Gebraeel’s research centers on improving the accuracy of predicting unexpected failures in engineering systems. The NSF named him a recipient of the CAREER Award in 2006.
• Mei’s research centers on change-point problems and sequential analysis in mathematical statistics, sensor networks and information theory in engineering, as well as longitudinal data analysis, random effects models and biostatistics clinical trials. He was named a CAREER recipient this year.
• Serban joined the ISyE faculty in 2005. Her research focused on nonparametric statistical methods motivated by recent applications from proteomics and genomics. She earned her CAREER award this year.
• Vengazihiyil was awarded the CAREER Award in 2005. With research interests in the areas of quality engineering and statistics, he has focused on developing novel statistical methods for solving complex engineering problems.
• Yuan earned the NSF CAREER Award in 2009, he was named the Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar in 2007. Yuan’s research interests include statistical learning, bioinformatics and methods of regularization.

Wu’s selection of these faculty members for the ISyE Statistics Group and their earning the prestigious award were a bit serendipitous, he says. “We simply wanted to hire the best people and groom them,” he said. “Winning a CAREER Award is one measure—though not the only one—of success.”

Their selection for the group, he says, was not based upon work that he consciously thought would be considered for this recognition of junior faculty. Wu adds that he did comment on and read the faculty members’ proposals who won their awards while at Tech, but that was the extent of his involvement.

Having a statistics group within the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering is unique in the higher education landscape, according to Vengazihiyil, who says the arrangement has led to better exposure of the latest developments and trends in engineering, as well as providing opportunity to collaborate with engineers.