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Industrial & Systems Engineering News

Carla Michini
November 10, 2025

Michini will use CAREER Award to improve post-disaster aid operations and more

While Carla Michini and her family took their usual summer trip to her native Italy in 2025, this was no relaxing getaway. Michini, an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of…

Professor Ranjana Mehta talks with a student in her lab during an experiment.
October 28, 2025

Ranjana Mehta on human-technology interaction and worker fatigue

Ranjana Mehta is the Grainger Institute for Engineering Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, who studies human behavior and the brain in working environments. Her research focuses on how people interact with emerging technologies such…

Stock image of a clinic
October 16, 2025

Mathematical models offer data-driven solutions to opioid crisis, engineering research shows

More than 81,806 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses in 2022, overwhelming hospitals and trapping thousands in cycles of addiction. But a new data-driven approach from engineering researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Florida A&M…

Assistant Professor Michael Biehler talks with students during the 2025 Hackathon/Makerthon.
October 10, 2025

Hackathon Makerthon brings students together to solve industry challenges

Sleep was on Nicolas Greaves and his groupmates’ to-do list. But, with motors to test, force calculations to crunch, prototype components to 3D print and more, the tasks kept stacking up. In the end, Greaves…

October 7, 2025

With major U.S. investment, UW-Madison leads effort to advance abundant fusion energy for all

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is leading a major multi-institution project to develop and test a critical fusion technology—research that will directly benefit commercial fusion power plant developers. A $19 million Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE)…

Jackie Cha
September 15, 2025

Focus on new faculty: Jackie Cha helps humans, robots work together smoothly in surgery

A surgeon sits in front of a console, head tucked into a cavity that shows an enhanced view of the operating field, controlling a multipronged robot that’s actually performing—mechanically, at least—the procedure. Studies have shown…

Customer inspects rings at jewelry store
June 25, 2025

For Wisconsin-based Jewelers Mutual, data science collaboration is extra insurance

Through a university collaboration that began some six years ago, a leading jewelry insurance provider is leveraging advanced data science and artificial intelligence tools to advance its business and benefit its customers. Jewelers Mutual Group…

Ashley Peper
June 23, 2025

Industrial engineer hopes optimization education will yield exponential dividends for future students

When Ashley Peper started to get serious about finding a career that would scratch her math itch, her teachers at Stevens Point Area Senior High floated the standard ideas: accountant or math teacher. “I don’t…

PhD student Fernando Acosta-Pérez stands in front of the emergency entrance at UW Hospital
May 30, 2025

Mathematical modeling helps hospitals efficiently assign patients to the right space

A hospital’s emergency department swells with patients, a chunk of whom will need to be admitted to the facility’s inpatient unit. But decision-makers in emergency care face a dilemma: When…

Professor Jim Luedtke works with students in Advanced Optimization Modeling
April 24, 2025

New advanced optimization course provides industry preparation

Industrial engineering students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who are interested in learning the basics of optimization—mathematical techniques that can solve problems such as choosing the quickest route from point A to point B—can sign…