Inside Our ProgramProgram Events
Events
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Oct27
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessAbstract: In a smart manufacturing system, a large number of sensors are installed to monitor machine status, process variables, product quality, and the overall system performance. It is always a challenging problem on how to analyze those massive amounts of hydrogenous data effectively for cost reduction and in-process quality improvements in all manufacturing companies. This presentation will discuss research opportunities, challenges, and advancements in this important research area, especially how artificial intelligent or machine learning concepts and algorithms can be used to solve challenging in-process quality improvement problems. Examples of ongoing research projects will be used to articulate the frontiers of this research area. All examples come from real data and challenging problems in industrial production systems. This presentation will emphasize the motivations of these research undertakings: challenges to be overcome, new AI/ML methods that were developed, validation/implementation undertook, as well as the potential impacts.
Biography: Jianjun Shi is the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests focus on the integration of AI/ML, statistics, and data science with engineering domain knowledge for quality improvement in advanced manufacturing.
Dr. Shi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of USA, an Academician of the International Academy for Quality, and a Fellow of 5 societies (ASME, IISE, INFORMS, ISI, and SME). His work is recognized by the ASA Deming Lecturer Award (2025), the ASQ Shainin Metal (2025), the ENBIS George Box Medal (2022), the ASQ Walter Shewhart Medal (2021), the SME/NAMRI S. M. Wu Research Implementation Award (2021), the ASQ Brumbaugh Award (2019), the Horace Pops Medal Award (2018), IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (2016), and the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award (2011).
Dr. Shi is the founding chair (1998-1999) of the Quality, Statistics and Reliability (QSR) Subdivision at INFORMS, and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IISE Transactions (2017-2020).
TIME Tuesday, October 27, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION L440, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Nathan Keiller nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)
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Nov10
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessBio
Andi Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which he joined in August 2024 after serving as an assistant professor in the School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks at Arizona State University. He holds a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology (2021), a PhD from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2016), and a BS from Peking University (2012). His research develops principled data science and machine learning methodologies for engineering processes and systems, including predictive analytics, monitoring, diagnostics, design optimization, and model-based control, with applications in areas such as additive and semiconductor manufacturing.TIME Tuesday, November 10, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Nathan Keiller nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)
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Nov16
EVENT DETAILS
lessRegular registration for Winter quarter begins
TIME Monday, November 16, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Nov17
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessBio
Salar Fattahi is a faculty member in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan (promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in May 2026). He received his PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley in 2020, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and a BS from Sharif University of Technology. He is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, has won multiple best paper awards from INFORMS, and serves as an Associate Editor for the INFORMS Journal on Data Science and as an area chair for NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR. His research develops efficient and scalable computational methods that exploit structure in optimization and machine learning problems, such as sparsity and low-rankness, to achieve strong guarantees at scale.TIME Tuesday, November 17, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Nathan Keiller nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)
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Nov20
EVENT DETAILS
lessDissertation, PhD Final Exam, and change of grade forms due to TGS for Fall PhD candidates
TIME Friday, November 20, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Nov24
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessBio: Zhenyu "James" Kong is the Ralph H. Bogle Jr. Professor in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. He received his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology and his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004. His research focuses on sensing and analytics for smart manufacturing, modeling and diagnosis of large and complex manufacturing systems, and machine learning for manufacturing applications, and he is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers.This talk consists of two parts. In the first part, we study the inference reliability of large language models (LLMs), with an emphasis on characterizing how prompt design affects the accuracy and stability of model outputs. We discuss recent theoretical and empirical advances in in-context learning and hallucination, and examine conditions under which LLMs produce reliable predictions. In the second part, we consider constrained bilevel optimization and develop efficient algorithms with provable guarantees. In particular, we show how error bound conditions can be leveraged to obtain fast convergence rates under mild assumptions.
TIME Tuesday, November 24, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Nathan Keiller nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)
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Nov25
EVENT DETAILS
lessThanksgiving Vacation begins at 6:00 PM (No classes, University offices closed)
TIME Wednesday, November 25, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Nov30
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall Classes Resume
TIME Monday, November 30, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec1
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessBio: René Caldentey is a Professor of Operations Management. His primary research interests include stochastic modeling with applications to revenue and retail management, queueing theory, and finance. He has been published in numerous journals including Advances in Applied Probability, Econometrica, Management Science, Mathematics of Operations Research, M&SOM, Operations Research and Queueing Systems. He has served on the editorial board of Management Science, M&SOM, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management and the Journal of Systems and Engineering (in Spanish).
Prior to joining Booth, Caldentey was a professor in the department of Information, Operations and Management Science at New York University Stern School of Business. Before joining NYU Stern in 2001, he worked for the Chilean Central Bank and taught at the University of Chile and The Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Professor Caldentey received his Master of Arts in civil industrial engineering from the University of Chile and his Doctor of Philosophy in operations management from MIT.TIME Tuesday, December 1, 2026 at 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
LOCATION A230, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Nathan Keiller nathan.keiller@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences (IEMS)
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Dec5
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall classes end
TIME Saturday, December 5, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec7
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall Exams begin
TIME Monday, December 7, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec12
EVENT DETAILS
lessFall exams end
TIME Saturday, December 12, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
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Dec12
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessThe ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 12 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.
TIME Saturday, December 12, 2026 at 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
LOCATION Pick-Staiger Concert Hall map it
CONTACT Andi Joppie andi.joppie@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
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Dec24
EVENT DETAILS
lessWinter Recess Starts - University Closed Through January 1st, 2027
TIME Thursday, December 24, 2026
CONTACT Office of the Registrar nu-registrar@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR University Academic Calendar
