Industrial Engineering Seniors Earn Scholarship From National Honor Society

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Lexxy Gentile, left, and Karlton Haney

Two industrial engineering seniors have earned scholarships form Alpha Pi Mu, the industrial engineering honor society. The society provides only five scholarships nationally each year.

Lexxy Gentile received the 2019-20 Robert and Jean Dryden Service Scholarship. The scholarship, was established in memory of Robert D. Dryden, former head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. The scholarship is given in recognition of exceptional commitment to service.

Gentile is involved in several student organizations including Tau Beta Pi, the Society for Women Engineers, Engineering World Health, Greek Life Facilitators, the Red Cross Student Organization, and Alpha Lambda Delta Honors Society, where she holds the position of treasurer.

Gentile is president of the student chapter of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, in addition to being an active member of Alpha Pi Mu. She helped start, and serves on, the department's technology committee, and has worked as a technical assistant for the Introduction to Operations Research course under direction of Associate Professor Kelly Sullivan.

She is working on research to characterize and predict statin use among pre-diabetic patients using data analytics and machine learning. Gentile presented her findings at the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2019 in Seattle, Washington, where she was one of the few undergraduate presenters. She, is now working on turning her research into a journal publication with the help of her mentor Associate Professor Shengfan Zhang.

Senior Karlton Haney received the John L. Imhoff Globalization Scholarship. Mrs. Lois Imhoff established this scholarship in memory of her husband, Dr. John Imhoff.  Imhoff is recognized as one of the pioneers of modern industrial engineering education and enjoyed a long career in leadership at the University of Arkansas. He was a believer in the contributions industrial engineering could make around the globe and was a strong supporter of Alpha Pi Mu.

Haney serves as vice-president of operations at the Volunteer Action Center and as the president of the University of Arkansas Chapter of Alpha Pi Mu. In addition to this service, he has been involved with the Honors College, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

He is actively working on undergraduate research with Sullivan as part of his honors thesis. Together, they are working to create a new metric for measuring the coverage of a wireless sensor network.

During his summers, Haney has been involved in a variety of activities. After his freshman year, he lived in Otoxha, Belize, for seven weeks, where he worked with two other University of Arkansas students to plant a men's church group. Following his sophomore year, he worked as a summer researcher in the industrial engineering department. In summer 2019, he studied abroad in Israel and interned at Walmart in its Accounting and Finance Development Program.

After graduation, he will begin working at the Walmart home office, where he accepted a position in a two-year rotation program.

Off-campus, Haney has served the community by helping run an after-school program through the Yvonne Richardson Community Center, leading a project with 50 volunteers during Make a Difference Day, and helping plan and organize events for international students.

He has been awarded full education funding and over $10,000 in additional funding for research and study abroad. He was selected for the 2020 Homecoming Court and has been on the Chancellor's list every semester on his college career.

In addition to the above honors and recognitions both Gentile and Haney were among 71 students selected from over 600 nominations as 2020 Seniors of Significance by the Arkansas Alumni Association.

About the Robert D. and Jean Dryden Service Scholarship: Dryden was the former head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. The scholarship was established in 2013 after the passing of Dr. Dryden.  Dryden served the industrial engineering profession with distinction and served as executive director of Alpha Pi Mu for 37 years. His areas of research were: rehabilitation engineering, construction productivity, human factors engineering, and safety.

About the John L. Imhoff Globalization Scholarship: An engineering educator for more than 50 years, John L. Imhoff was the founding department head for the Industrial Engineering program at the University of Arkansas. He thrived on the global impact potential of the industrial engineering discipline. His vision encompassed the undergraduate, graduate, and teaching levels. He believed that global sharing through educational channels would lead to greater cooperation and understanding. He was committed to students within the classroom and was passionate about professional student organizations, as well as faculty involvement within those organizations. He encouraged students to travel abroad on work/study programs, encouraged them to take summer jobs abroad and encouraged faculty to bring in speakers who had worked abroad to share their experiences.