Industrial Engineering Faculty, Students Earn Top Honors at National Reliability Conference

Faculty and students in the Department of Industrial Engineering were recognized for exceptional contributions to their field at the 2026 Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS), held in January. 

Haitao Liao, professor of industrial engineering, received two prestigious awards for collaborative research presented at RAMS events in consecutive years. 

The 2025 William A.J. Golomski Award, presented by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers' Quality, Cost, Reliability and Engineering Division, honored the paper "Analysis of Censored Aggregate Failure-Time Data Using Phase-Type Distributions." Co-authors included Samira Karimi, a former doctoral student at the U of A; Ke Yang, a former postdoctoral researcher at the university; and Neng Fan, professor at the University of Arizona. 

This year, Liao also co-authored the paper selected for the 2026 Doug Ogden Award Best Paper Award from the Society of Reliability Engineers. The winning paper, "Physics- and Image-Informed Reliability Prediction for Pipelines Under Competing Failure Modes," was co-authored with Nikesh Kumar, a current doctoral student, and Miao Tan, a former doctoral student. The honor includes a $5,000 prize and recognizes outstanding work by members of the Society of Reliability Engineers. 

In addition, graduate student Farid Hashemian received one of two Hans Reiche Scholarships from the Society of Reliability Engineers, recognizing his contributions and active engagement in the field. He will be honored alongside fellow recipient Fatemeh Salboukh of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. 

"I am proud of the recognitions earned by Dr. Liao and our students," said Chase Rainwater, head of the Department of Industrial Engineering. "Their success underscores our department's continued contributions to the area of reliability." 

The Department of Industrial Engineering congratulates all honorees on these prestigious recognitions and their contributions to advancing the field. 

About the College of Engineering: The University of Arkansas College of Engineering is the state's largest engineering school, offering graduate and undergraduate degrees, online studies and interdisciplinary programs. It enrolls more than 4,700 students and employs more than 150 faculty and researchers along with nearly 200 staff members. Its research enterprise generated $47 million in new research awards in Fiscal Year 2025. The college's strategic plan, Vision 2035, seeks to build the premier STEM workforce in accordance with three key objectives: Initiating lifelong student success, generating transformational and relevant knowledge, and becoming the destination of choice among educators, students, staff, industry, alumni and the community. As part of this, the college is increasing graduates and research productivity to expand its footprint as an entrepreneurial engineering platform serving Arkansas and the world. The college embraces its pivotal role in driving economic growth, fueling innovation and educating the next generation of engineers, computer scientists and data scientists to address current and future societal challenges.