Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

09/10/2026

09/10/2026

Texas A&M Industrial and Systems Engineering congratulates our INFORMS Student Chapter at Texas A&M on being named a Summa Cum Laude recipient in the 2025–2026 INFORMS Student Chapter Annual Awards.

The award will be presented during the Student Awards Ceremony at the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting on Monday, November 2, in San Francisco.

This is one of the highest honors INFORMS gives its student chapters, and it reflects the dedication of our students in building a chapter that stands out on a national stage.

Congratulations to our INFORMS Student Chapter — we're proud of you!

09/08/2026

Our department is in for ISE Day 2026.

On September 14, 2026, we will join IISE, CIEADH, and ISE departments across the country and the world for the second annual Industrial and Systems Engineering Day — an international celebration of the students, faculty, alumni, and industry partners showing the power of ISE every day.

ISE is where we optimize systems, center people, and drive smarter decisions.

and

RSVP and help amplify the field: https://www.linkedin.com/events/iseday20267452047524619735040/

09/03/2026

Dr. Jaesung Lee, an Assistant Professor in the Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University, has recently received three NIH and NSF grants as Principal Investigator, totaling approximately $1.94 million. The awards include a single-PI NIH/NIAMS R01 awarded through a joint NSF/NIH Smart Health program, an NSF FDT-BioTech award, and an NIH/NIDCR R21.

These projects establish an integrated research portfolio at the intersection of AI, engineering systems, digital twins, and biomedical prediction and evaluation, with methodological contributions in statistical and physics-informed machine learning, inverse problems, and trustworthy predictive modeling.

In the NIAMS R01, Dr. Lee serves as sole Principal Investigator and leads a multidisciplinary team with two co-investigators to establish digital twin systems for posture-aware, personalized prediction of spine fracture risk in older adults with osteoporosis.

The NSF FDT-BioTech project establishes a trustworthy preclinical digital twin framework for evaluating All-on-4 implant-prosthesis configurations and embeds verification, validation, uncertainty quantification, and robustness criteria to determine when layout comparisons are reliable.

The NIH/NIDCR R21 establishes patient-specific approaches for understanding dental bone properties and predicting how bone responds during dental surgical procedures. Across these projects, Dr. Lee’s work uses imaging data and experimental validation to transform limited biomedical data into reliable predictive models that can inform individualized treatment planning and surgical evaluation.

Dr. Lee's broader research also extends to statistical machine learning for advanced manufacturing, including an ongoing LIFT/DoW AMC project with the U.S. Department of War focused on data-driven virtual qualification and certification.

More about the project: https://lnkd.in/grCtAVTa
Learn more about Dr. Lee: https://lnkd.in/gx7v2xuG

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08/19/2026

Dr. ZJ Pei has been approved as our new Associate Department Head for Research. Dr. Pei is widely recognized as one of the department’s leading researchers and brings extensive experience from his work with both the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

His distinguished career and depth of expertise make him exceptionally well suited to provide the leadership and mentorship that will help advance our research mission and support the continued success of our faculty.

Congratulations Dr. Pei!

08/13/2026

Former student creates an endowed chair for our department. Check out the story: https://news.engineering.tamu.edu/news/2026/07/31/systems-engineer-and-energy-leader-strengthens-faculty-support/

08/12/2026

Texas A&M Engineering Undergraduate Poster Session was organized recently by the College of Engineering Graduate Programs.

Rohan Tolia, a mechanical engineering undergraduate student advised by Dinakar Sagapuram and Jobin Mathews, was awarded 3rd place among 85 participants for his research poster titled "A bubble raft analog for studying asperity interactions and adhesive wear."

The poster shows how a two-dimensional bubble raft was used as a physical analog of crystalline metals, where thousands of self-assembled bubbles mimic the ordered arrangement of atoms in a crystal. By bringing engineered surface “asperities” (small, rough bumps or uneven projections on a surface) into contact, microscopic deformation and shear of individual asperities can be visualized in real time.

“These microscopic asperity-level phenomena have historically been quite difficult to observe on metal surfaces. The simple bubble raft platform offers a new way to understand the fundamental origins of friction and wear, with implications for manufacturing, tribology and other industrial applications where surface interactions matter,” Sagapuram said.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rohan-tolia_im-proud-to-share-that-i-placed-3rd-out-activity-7491544915739369472-OSF0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAK7cEYB0SsAwK67U_zKYAu2SwubR-an4Gw

08/04/2026

Texas A&M Industrial and Systems Engineering congratulates Jaesung Lee, assistant professor, for being awarded a research grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant’s title is, “Toward Personalized Dental Surgery Planning: Dental Bone Stiffness Discovery and Strain Prediction Using Physics-Informed Machine Learning.”

His team will use physics-informed AI to generate patient-specific, three-dimensional maps of bone stiffness and strain for different implant sizes, positions, and angles. The project aims to help surgeons identify vulnerable regions, compare options before surgery, and reduce the risks of implants loosening, bone loss, or fractures.

"This is an important development! Funding from multiple federal agencies is remarkable and speaks to the merits and potential impacts of Dr. Lee's work," said Satish Bukkapatnam, department head.

06/29/2026

Dr. Evgenia Dimitriou, earned her Ph.D. at the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her doctoral research focused on nanoparticle inks for laser-based additive manufacturing of electronics.

"While this technology offers faster and higher-resolution printing than traditional electronics manufacturing methods, the inks themselves have received relatively little attention,” Dimitriou said.

Dimitriou joined Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering of Texas A&M in January 2025 as a Postdoctoral Researcher under the supervision of Dr. Zhijian (ZJ) Pei.

What motivated Dimitriou to pursue her postdoctoral research with Dr. Pei? “His work aligns closely with my interests and provides opportunities to explore new applications and collaborate with researchers from different disciplines,” Dimitriou said.

While here, she studied advanced manufacturing technologies for applications ranging from aerospace to biomedical engineering and investigated materials spanning ceramic-metal composites to bioinks for bioprinting.

“As I return to Greece, I plan to continue my research in advanced manufacturing and materials engineering while strengthening international collaborations,” Dimitriou said.

“My experience at Texas A&M has broadened my perspective on research and innovation, and I hope to share these lessons with my community while encouraging early-stage researchers to pursue international opportunities and experience the collaborative research culture that makes institutions like Texas A&M so impactful,” she added.

Dr. Pei summed up Dimitriou's work while here. “She has demonstrated strong research capability and independence, publishing several journal papers as the first author and making valuable contributions to multiple other papers."