April 05, 2007 —
Assistant Prof. Luca Quadrifoglio, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University received third place in the Institute of Industrial Engineers Pristsker Doctoral Dissertation competition. Dr. Quadrafiglio completed his doctoral dissertation, "A Hybrid Fixed and Flexible Transportation Service: Description, Viability, Formulation, Optimization, and Heuristic" under the guidance of Prof. Maged Dessouky at USC. He graduated from the Epstein ISE Department in August of 2005, and served as a post-doctoral fellow with the USC Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) prior to joining the faculty of Texas A&M University.
Prof. Quadrifoglio will be recognized May 20, 2007 at the awards banquet for the Industrial Engineering Solutions 2007 Conference at the Renaissance Hotel Nashville/Nashville Convention Center.
Prof. Maged Dessouky won the Institute of Industrial Engineers Operations Research Division's Teaching Award. This award indentifies Prof. Dessouky as a national leader in the communication of operations research tools and techniques to graduate and undergraduate students. The Division board was especially impressed by Prof. Dessouky's student teaching evaluations and the VFTS factory simulation game system he designed to support his courses. The board also noted strong support letters, detailed course notes, papers, and awards that already acknowledge Prof. Dessouky's teaching.
Prof. Dessoukey links the material in his lecture to previous lectures and to other classes he knows his students will likely have completed, and to classes he knows they would likely take in the future. He excels as a quasi-Socratic style that involves placing questions to students and engaging them, and using their feed-back to assess their progress and his. His students trust him. They are unafraid of offering an incorrect response. They know it will not be held against them, and that nothing in the way Prof. Dessouky fields the interaction will be a source of embarrassment for them .
Further, he backs his efforts up with copious office hours. He is highly responsive to students, and they look forward to their classes with him. Previously, Prof. Dessouky has been recognized by the Epstein Department, the Viterbi School of Engineering, and the University of Southern California with highest teaching honors at each level. He is a fellow of USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, and great resource for USC and Epstein ISE Department, faculty and students alike.
The OR Division board will acknowledge Prof. Dessouky as the 2007 Teaching Award winner and his contribution to teaching OR during the OR Town Hall meeting on May 21 at the the Industrial Engineering Solutions 2007 Conference.
