Two faculty members in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering have been honored with George Tech’s 2016 Steven A. Denning Award for Global Engagement. These faculty are Pinar Keskinocak, William W. George Chair and ADVANCE Professor, and Julie Swann, Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor.

The Denning Award for Global Engagement recognizes a Georgia Tech faculty member who has demonstrated sustained outstanding achievement and commitment to the advancement of the Institute’s global engagement. This program is funded through the generous support provided in the establishment of the Steven A. Denning Chair in Global Engagement in the Office of International Education.

About the Steven A. Denning Award for Global Engagement

This award seeks to recognize a tenured or tenure-track faculty member who has made a significant and sustainable impact in one or more of the following areas:

• Promoting the recognition of Georgia Tech in other countries
• Advancing research, education, and economic development engagement at the international level
• Enriching the experiences of international students or scholars
• Incorporating global perspectives in teaching or international components into the curriculum
• Giving of their time and influence to organize and/or promote international events, visitors, or other international exchanges at Georgia Tech
• Creating new ideas, structures, procedures, or products which promise to eliminate international inequalities, to promote global cooperation, or to foster respect for human dignity among nations and peoples of the world.

About Pinar Keskinocak

Pinar Keskinocak is the William W. George Chair in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering and an Advance Professor for the College of Engineering.  She is the co-director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems at Georgia Tech.

Her research focuses on applications of operations research and management science with societal impact (particularly health and humanitarian applications) and supply chain management, with an emphasis on resource allocation, revenue management, auctions/pricing, due date/lead-time decisions, production planning/scheduling, and logistics/transportation. She has worked on projects in several industries including automotive, semiconductor, paper manufacturing, printing, healthcare, and airlines. She is actively engaged in research and applications in healthcare and humanitarian logistics. Her research has been published in journals such as Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, IIE Transactions, Naval Research Logistics, Interfaces, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, BMC Public Health, Epidemiology and Infection.

Dr. Keskinocak serves as the department editor of the Policy Modeling and Public Sector/Area of Operations Research, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and IIE Transactions, and a department editor for IIE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering. She is one of the founding members of the INFORMS-JFIG (Junior Faculty Interaction Group) and INFORMS Section on Public Programs, Service, and Needs group, and has served as the president of both sections. She also has served as the INFORMS Vice President of Membership and Professional Recognition; Chair of the INFORMS Doctoral Colloquium in 2003; Chair of the Nicholson Prize in 2005; Vice President-Projects and Vice President-Meetings, INFORMS Forum on Education (INFORM-ED); Treasurer, MSOM Society; and President and Vice President-Meetings, INFORMS Forum for Women in OR/MS (WORMS).

About Julie Swann

Julie Swann is the Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor in the Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering and co-director of The Health and Humanitarian Systems Center, one of the first Interdisciplinary Research Centers on Georgia Tech campus.

Dr. Swann is currently focused on the modeling and analysis of problems and algorithms in logistics, transportation and supply chain management. She has particular interests in developing and analyzing tools to manage demand, such as pricing, revenue management, or lead-time quotation, to increase the flexibility in the system and is currently doing work in humanitarian supply chains. Other research interests include applications of economics and optimization to healthcare policy.

Dr. Swann participated in several research projects at General Motors and IBM, focusing on pricing in different industries. At General Motors, Dr. Swann developed a tool integrating pricing, production and distribution of vehicles while meeting Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. At IBM, she explored pricing models for efficient bandwidth allocation.

She was awarded an NSF CAREER grant in 2004, and recently, one of her papers was selected as a Finalist in the Shepherd award at the CDC. In 2002, she received the Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Council of Logistics Management and was a Finalist in the Dantzig Doctoral Dissertation Competition at INFORMS. In 2006 she was inducted into the Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni of Georgia Tech.