Sustainable Systems Engineering Laboratory
Research Team
Current Research Team at Purdue
Lisa Tieman Khuram Mir Joyce Gates
Sue Wongweragiat Brad Gates Xiuli Qu
Alumni of Research Team at Purdue
Sarah Loehr
Sara A. Lonn
Jamie Wieland
Pedro
Rios Leslie Blyler
Sofia
Lopez
Past Team Collaborations and Alumni of the Research Team at The Ohio State University
Dr. Kurt Koelling Dr. Blaine Lilly
Qin Lu Vivi Christina Christiana Kuswanti
Taylor Rich Diane Adams Renata Sommerville
Rebekah Graves Jianhong Qiao Juliana Gonzalez
Research Team Introductions
Professor Julie Ann Stuart assembled the Sustainable Systems Engineering Laboratory at Purdue. The SSE Team currently consists of several graduate students, undergraduate students, and faculty. The team continues to grow as research support and industry collaboration continues and increases.
Current Research Team at Purdue
Julie Ann Stuart is
currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. Professor Stuart received
her B.S. degrees summa cum laude from North
Carolina State University and Furman
University through a dual degree liberal arts/engineering program. She
received her M.S.I.E. and Ph.D. in Production, Distribution, and Material
Handling from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her
employment history includes industrial engineering work at Barnhardt
Manufacturing and ALCOA Badin Works as well as service on the faculty at The Ohio State University, where she was awarded
a 1999 Annual Research Accomplishment Award for her research in demanufacturing operations. She received a National Science
Foundation CAREER grant in Production Systems from DDMI, a National Science
Foundation/Lucent Technologies Industrial Ecology Faculty Fellowship, an
Ameritech Faculty Fellowship, a grant from Resource Concepts, Inc., and a grant
from General Motors. She is a registered professional engineer in the state of
Ohio and is a member of INFORMS (Institute
for Operations Research and Management Science), IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers), and ISIE (International Society of Industrial Ecology).
Her research and teaching interests focus on sustainable systems engineering as
well as production and recycling systems planning.
Lisa is a senior at Purdue University working on her BS in Industrial
Engineering, and plans to attend graduate school for industrial
engineering. Lisa’s work experience includes five co-op sessions at
UPS in the Operations Research Group, Air Hub Control Systems Department, and
Hub 2000 Systems Integration Certification Lab in Louisville, Kentucky.
She is faculty liaison and former treasurer of Alpha Pi Mu
(APM) industrial engineering honor society, and led two sections of ENGR 194.
She is a member of IIE (Institute of
Industrial Engineers), CSA (Co-Op Student Association), SWE (Society
of Women Engineers) and a Purdue Convocation Special Event Usher.
Khuram Mir
Khuram Mir is currently a senior at Purdue
University working on his B.S in Industrial Engineering. He was a Teaching
Assistant for Physics 152(Mechanics) and Physics 241(Electricity and Optics).
He is a resident hall counselor at Cary Quadrangle, Purdue University. He is
also a member of IIE. His research interests are in production system and
distribution networking.
Sue Wongweragiat
Sudaratana Wongweragiat
is currently a graduate student in at the school of Industrial Engineering at
Purdue University. Ms. Wongweragiat received
her B.S. degree from the Department of Operations Research and Industrial
Engineering (OR&IE)from Cornell University. She is
a member of Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS).
She is also a member of the PurdueThai Student
Association. Her research focuses on repackaging and inventory management of
product returns, and sustainability.
Brad
Gates
Brad Gates is a sophomore in the Computer Science Honors program at
Purdue. Brad has been developing java code for repackaging algorithms for
product returns. Brad is a member of the Association for Computing
Machinery and the Purdue University Gamers Group.
Xiuli Qu
Xiuli Qu is a PhD student in School of
Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. She received her BSEE (1992), MSEE
(1995) from University of Science and Technology Beijing (Beijing, China) and
her MSIE from Purdue University in May 2002. Xiuli's
previous work experience includes working for University of Science and
Technology Beijing as a lecturer and several IT companies as a technical
consultant. Currently, she works for School of Education at Purdue University
on P3T3 project as a Web programmer. She is a member of Institute for
Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). Xiuli's
current research focuses on modeling of plastics supply chain. Her research
interests also include digital signal processing, real time harmonic analysis,
and development of large scale industrial control system.
Joyce is a mathematics
teacher at Central Catholic Jr.-Sr. High School in
Lafayette, IN. Joyce is the chairperson of the mathematics department and
teaches geometry, discrete mathematics, statistics, and calculus. She is
a member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Indiana
Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Her research project focuses on
handling returns in a catalog sales distribution center.
Alumni of Research Team at Purdue
Sarah graduated with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University in 2001. Originally from Onalaska, Wisc., Sarah is now employed at Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, in the Domestic Supply Chain organization. Sarah’s research contributions with the ESCRAP team involved reverse supply chain decision mechanisms. While at Purdue, Sarah was also involved with the Institute of Industrial Engineers student chapter, the Co-op Student Association, the Visitor Information Center and The Purdue Exponent.
In the future, Sarah hopes to continue her education and research in Industrial Engineering while pursuing graduate studies. Her research interests include production systems, global supply chain and reverse manufacturing.
Leslie graduated from Purdue University in May 2003 with a BS in Industrial
Engineering. Leslie works for Kimberly Clark in Neenah, WI.
Leslie’s previous work experience was at Walt Disney World, in
Orlando, Florida, as a five-term co-op in the Industrial Engineering
Department. Leslie’s research focused on computer disassembly
strategies as well as grouping strategies for bulk recycling. She was a
member of IIE (Institute of Industrial
Engineers), CSAC (Co-Op Student Advisory Council), Alpha Pi Mu Industrial Engineering Honors Society, and was a
Residence Hall Counselor at Earhart Hall.
Pedro received his M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University in 2003. He received a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Lima in December 1991. Pedro’s previous work experience includes working for GMD S.A. as a Platform Service Manager and a Compaq Product Manager, as well as working for Ingram Micro Peru S.A. as a Product Manager. Pedro’s research included reviewing polymer separation models and preparing a bulk recycling literature review.
Jamie is currently a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University. Jamie has a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and management science with a second major in economics from Northwestern University and recently completed a master's degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University. Her research interests are primarily in stochastic operations research.
Mr. Winston Bonawi-tan
received his M.S. and B.S. degrees from the School of Industrial Engineering at
Purdue University. He is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and
Management Science (INFORMS). While at Purdue he actively served in the
Indonesian Student Association. His research focuses on product returns,
production systems, and quality control. Winston is currently a Communication Analyst for Tranzact Technologies in
Elmhurst, IL, where his responsibilites are to set up and maintain the flow
of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) tranfers between the company and their
clients.
Originally
from Peoria, IL, Sara earned her BS from Purdue University in Industrial
Engineering (Honors Program) with a minor in Management
from Purdue's Krannert School of Management in
May 2002. Sara's previous work experiences include working as an IE
co-op at BMG Direct in the Inbound, Outbound, and Transaction Processing
Departments and two summer intern positions at Caterpillar Inc. in Current
Operations Planning at the Global Distribution Center in Morton, IL. Sara
is currently in the College Graduate Trainee program in the Caterpillar
Logistics organization as a full time engineer. The research project Sara
studied involves the returns policies for original equipment manufacturers for
low-value, long-life cycle products. In her research, Sara collaborated
with the Caterpillar Global Distribution Center. From this research, Sara
received first place in the IIE Student Technical paper contest both at Purdue
University and in the regional 8 & 11 competition. Sara went on to
the IIE International Student Technical paper competition, where she received
second place. Sara is a member of INFORMS
(Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences), IIE (Institute of Industrial
Engineers), SWE (Society of Women Engineers), and Alpha Pi Mu Industrial Engineering Honor Society.
Past Team Collaborations and Alumni of the Research Team at The Ohio State University
Dr. Koelling
will be assisting with the polymer processing portion of the project. He earned
his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Missouri-Rolla and his
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University. Professor Kurt Koelling is now an Associate Professor of Chemical
Engineering at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Koelling has worked as a polymer research chemist at MEAD Technologies in Rolla, Missouri. During his graduate studies he also conducted research at DuPont's Benger Fiber Laboratories in Waynesboro, VA and the Textile Research Institute in Princeton, NJ. In 1994 Dr. Koelling received the National Science Foundation Research Initiation Award and in 1996 he received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. Dr. Koelling currently studies polymer degradation under shear and extensional flows, polymer recycling, gas-assisted injection molding, extensional rheology of polymer melts and solutions, and two phase and interfacial flows of non-Newtonian fluids.
Dr. Koelling serves as Associate Director of the
NSF Center for Advanced Polymer and Composite Engineering. He is a member of
the American Institute of Chemical Engineering, Society of Rheology,
American Chemical Society, Polymer Processing Society, Society of Plastics
Engineering and Tau Beta Pi.
Dr. Lilly is supporting
the design effort for the NSF/Lucent in the Industrial Ecology project.
He is assisting in the design and fabrication of the molds used to test the
polymer blends. Dr. Lilly began his career as a tool and die maker at
General Motors, while earning his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Mechanical
Engineering at Ohio State. He then worked for several years as a staff engineer
at the ERC for Net Shape Manufacturing with Dr. Taylan
Altan, and then spent a year at the Technical
University of Aachen in Germany. After
returning from Germany, he began the Ph.D. program in Industrial and Systems
Engineering at OSU, and began teaching courses in design for manufacturing,
CAD/CAM, and parametric design in 1994.
Since 1998 Dr. Lilly has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Industrial, Welding, & Systems Engineering and the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at Ohio State. His research is focused around the design and
fabrication of tooling for polymer processing, and includes projects in the
accelerated manufacturing of molds and dies, design of tooling for sheet
molding compound, and fabrication of molds for micromolding.
He is a member of the SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers) and ASME
(American Society of Mechanical Engineerins.)
Qin
Lu received her Ph.D. degree in Production Systems/Operations Research from the
Department of Industrial, Welding and Systems Engineering at The Ohio State
University. She received her dual Bachelor's Degrees in Automatic Control
and Engineering Economics and completed advanced studies in Systems Engineering
from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China).
At Ohio State, Ms. Lu helped formulate mathematical models to decide the optimal reprocessing levels for both discrete and continuous recycling scenarios. She also formulated mixed integer programming models as decision tools for strategic bulk reycling planning and developed a heuristic algorithm to improve the solution menthodology for the MIP model.
While working as a visiting researcher at Resource Concepts, Inc. at
Carrollton, TX, she studied End-of-Life electronics collection and product
remanufacturing/recycling operations first-hand.
Vivi
Christina grew up in Indonesia and began her studies at The Ohio State
University spring 1997. She is the recipient of David Lipphardt
Manufacturing Scholarship. Ms. Christina joined the research team spring 1999.
The focus of her research is to develop a simulation model of demanufacturing operations that tracks metrics for staging
inventory and shipment load cycle time. Ms. Christina graduated in June 2001
and worked as Industrial Engineer at Lee Middleton Original Dolls, Inc.
Taylor Rich received his
BS in Industrial Engineering with Honors in December1999 from The Ohio State
University. In March 2000, he received his BSBA in Transportation &
Logistics, also from Ohio State. His studies at Ohio State were funded by both
a National Merit Scholarship and a University Presidential Scholarship.
Most recently, Taylor worked as an internal consultant for Norfolk Southern
Railway as a Logistics Specialist. Other significant positions have
included working for IBM at its Asset Recovery Center, and working for the former
Hills Department Stores at its Distribution Service Center. Through his
university coursework, he has also been privileged to consult to Custom Coach
Corporation and-through Dr. Julie Ann Stuart's LCD PASS research group-to
collaborate with the former Recyclights, Inc.
Taylor completed his Undergraduate Honors Thesis in inventory and recycling
strategies for low value products based upon the work he has done in
conjunction with Dr. Stuart and a local recycler. He has also continued a
project to develop statistical models of the take-back rates of retired
computer hardware. In the future, Taylor intends to return to graduate school
when an exciting enough problem grabs him by the lapels and challenges him to
"solve me!" Currently, Taylor is awaiting
commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force, where he will work as a
Developmental Project Engineer. He will be responsible for the development,
contracting, and implementation of advanced systems and hardware, working with
defense contractors and both civilian and military professionals.
Christiana Kuswanti
was born in Samarinda, East Borneo, Indonesia.
She moved to Surabaya, East Java for her high school years prior to study at
The Ohio State University. At Ohio State, she was awarded an ALCOA
Corporation Scholarship for 1998-1999. She was inducted into Alpha Pi Mu and Tau Beta Pi Engineering
Honor Societies. Winter 1998, she was an intern in the Logistics
Department at AGA Gas, Inc., in Cleveland, OH, where she performed cost and
distance analysis for a new branch for the company.
As an undergraduate research assistant at Ohio State, Christiana has
designed experiments with different post-consumer and virgin polymer blends,
prepared the materials, used the materials to injection mold several different
products, and conducted surface roughness analyses. Recently, Christiana
won first place in the student technical poster contest at the Society of
Plastics Engineers Annual Recycling Conference in Detroit, MI, in November 1999.
Originally from Cleveland Heights,
Ohio, Diane graduated from Ohio State with a B.S. in Industrial and Systems
Engineering in March 1999. Diane had prior research experience in the Mechanical
Engineering department at Ohio State where she performed computer simulated
testing of an infrared distance detector sensor. Diane interned with Delco
Electronics in Flint, MI and with AlliedSignal in Phoenix, AZ.
Diane researched the relationship between the date of manufacture of
computer equipment and the date of equipment return. She collected data for
monitors and keyboards at local computer take-back centers and analyzed the
statistical distribution for the take-back rate. She graduated March 1999 and
is currently a Specialist, Vehicle Production Engineer for Plastics at Toyota.
She has responsibilities for mold and machine procurement and works with
designers and suppliers as well as other production engineers.
Renata
graduated from Ohio State with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering in March 1998.
She interned at General Motors and Delphi Chassis Systems. At Delphi Chassis
Systems Renata helped to implement QS9000
requirements in a plant manufacturing struts. She also wrote standardized work
instructions and supervised hourly employees. At General Motors, Renata was involved in reporting first time capability for
sport utility vehicles. She also created databases for quality control
information and trained employees to use the database and produce first time
capability reports.
Renata assisted Dr. Stuart's research of life
cycle design. She co-authored two papers with Dr. Stuart: "Materials
Selection for Life Cycle Design", which appeared in the Proceedings of the
1998 IEEE ISEE, and "A Review of Life Cycle Design Challenges" which
appeared in 1998 in the International Journal of Environmentally Conscious
Design and Manufacturing. Renata graduated March 1998
and has been working at Tivoli Systems as the Metrics Coordinator for the
Education Department since September 1998. She is currently pursuing a Master's
degree in Engineering Management from the University of Texas at Austin.
Rebekah
Graves grew up in Westerville, Ohio and is a fourth generation female Buckeye.
She spent four quarters "co-op"ing in
industry with a sheet-metal stamping company, Stolle
Products, and a glass manufacturing company, Techneglas,
Inc.. She assisted with ISO 9002 preparations, worked
with engineers to develop costing formulas, recommended plant layout changes,
and researched technology changes for a monorail system.
Ms. Graves prepared the drawings and designed the experiments to test the
post consumer resin. She ran the Sumitomo injection molding machine and
collected data on different material combinations. Ms. Graves received an achievement award for women in
engineering from General Motors. After graduating in June 1999, she
worked in the Chicago area, for Yaskawa Electric
America, a Japanese-owned company that assembles inverters and servos for use
in industrial markets. Ms. Graves worked in the operations engineering division
which works with new product introduction and production support. In June
2002, Ms. Graves began working as a process engineer in Hebron, OH for Diebold, Inc., a major world-wide supplier of banking
security products and ATM machines.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Juliana transferred to The Ohio State
University in fall of 1997. She began studying Industrial Engineering in
the Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota). At Ohio
State, she was awarded the Lipphardt's Manufacturing
Scholarship for 1998-1999 and was the secretary for the Organization of
Hispanic Students in Engineering and Architecture.
Ms. Gonzalez interned for Lucent Technologies in Columbus, Ohio, in the Billing and Data Management department where she developed and designed an Intranet customer reference database.
Juliana joined the research team fall 1998. Juliana investigated the
communication links between the different entities involved in demanufacturing and manufacturing systems. She focused on
an environmental tool that integrates designers' concepts with requirements for
recycling in the area of plastic selection. She graduated in June 1999 and now
works for Lucent Technologies in Columbus, Ohio.
Jianhong Qiao is a graduate research assistant at Purdue University.He received the B.S. and M. S. degrees in
Mechanical Engineering from the Shanghai Jiao
Tong University, Shanghai, China and the M.S. in Operations Research from The Ohio State University.His current research interests focus on forward and
reverse supply chain management.He is a member
of INFORMS.