Industrial Engineering Announces Two New Faculty Members for Fall 2019

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Burak Eksioglu and Sandra D. Eksioglu

The Department of Industrial Engineering has added two faculty members, Sandra D. Eksioglu and Burak Eksioglu. Sandra Eksioglu holds the James M. and Marie G. Hefley Professorship in Logistics and Entrepreneurship.

She received her doctorate in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida. Prior to joining the University of Arkansas, she served as a faculty member at Mississippi State and Clemson Universities.  

Sandra's expertise lies in the areas of operations research, network optimization and algorithmic development. She uses these tools to develop models and solution algorithms for solving large-scale problems that arise in the areas of transportation, logistics, and supply chain. Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security. She is currently serving on the editorial board of Optimization Letters, Journal of Energy Systems, and Journal of Cleaner Production.   

Sandra was a recipient of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences' Moving Spirit Award for Chapters in 2010, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2011, and the American Society for Engineering Education-Southeast Mid-Career Teaching Award in 2015. She was the winner of the Best Application Paper in IISE Transactions Focus Issue on Scheduling and Logistics in 2018 and 2019. She currently serves as chair of the Women in Engineering Division of ASEE; she was the chair of Railway Application Section of the INFORMS, and the president of Operations Research Division of IISE.

Burak Eksioglu also joins the Department of Industrial Engineering as a professor. He received a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida, a master's degree in engineering business management from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, and a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Bogazici University in Turkey. His research program is focused on the area of optimization with applications in transportation, logistics, production management, supply chain management and health care.

Burak's research has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, and industry. He currently serves as associate editor of IISE Transactions. He has served as the president of the Operations Research and the Logistics and Supply Chain Divisions of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. He also served as the director of a Tier 1 University Transportation Center.

Burak has received numerous teaching and research awards such as the Best Application Paper Award from IISE Transactions, Bagley College of Engineering Faculty Research Award, and Excellence in the Teaching of Operations Research from IISE. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, INFORMS, IISE, ASEE, and POMS.