Andrew Armacost Receives Distinguished Alumni Award

Northwestern Industrial Engineering honored graduate Andrew Armacost (’89) with its 2022 IEMS Distinguished Alumni Award during an October 7 ceremony in the Allen Center.

Armacost currently serves as the 13th president of the University of North Dakota. He previously served as dean of the faculty at the US Air Force Academy (USAFA). With more than 30 years on active duty and 20 years at USAFA, Armacost served in the rank of brigadier general as the chief academic officer. He had direct responsibility for a faculty of 550, an academic program with 31 majors, and a student body of 4,300. He has been a champion of shared governance, academic freedom, inclusion, student growth, and applied learning and research. USAFA’s sponsored research program of more than $50 million annually made it the nation’s top-funded research program among undergraduate schools.

Prior to that role, Armacost served as the head of USAFA’s Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited business management program, leading 40 faculty members and USAFA’s largest academic major. As a faculty member, he attained the academic rank of professor, while sustaining a particular focus on developing and delivering applied learning opportunities for his students. His additional service to the Air Force has included assignments as the chief analyst at Air Force Space Command and as a program manager for systems supporting the intelligence community and the White House.

Armacost has been widely recognized for his disciplinary expertise, academic leadership, and commitment to interdisciplinary learning. His lifetime of work, as both scholar and leader, earned him recognition as a Fellow of the Institution for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and lifetime achievement awards from both the Air Force and the Military Operations Research Society. In addition, he has received numerous teaching, research, and curriculum design awards at the institutional, national, and international levels.

A native of Glendale, Wisconsin, Armacost earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Northwestern, where he wrote an honors thesis under the guidance of Sanjay Mehrotra, professor of industrial engineering and management sciences. Armacost earned his master’s and PhD degrees in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Armacost was introduced at the ceremony by Barry Nelson, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.