Mississippi State University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering students and faculty brought home several awards at the 2025 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering this past summer.
Held in Atlanta, the conference brought together ISE faculty and students from universities around the world to present and discuss their research. MSU ISE alumni also attended the university’s first alumni reconnecting event at the conference.
ISE faculty and students presented a total of 27 conference papers and organized several sessions for attendees. Faculty members Haifeng Wang, associate professor; Jenna Johnson, assistant teaching professor; and Brian Smith, associate professor, chaired multiple tracks and boards.
Five students placed across several categories, with three earning awards in more than one competition. Seunghan Lee, ISE assistant professor, also received two awards.
Awards include:
1st place, Best Student Paper, Modeling and Simulation Division:
“Modeling and Predicting Traffic Congestion During Wildfires with Hidden Markov Models”
- Bates Bennett, ISE graduate student
- Gavin Denton, ISE graduate student
- Seunghan Lee, ISE assistant professor
2nd place, Best Track Paper, Work Systems Division:
“Validating Virtual Reality Surgical Training Through Modeling Learning Processes with Hidden Markov Models for Workforce Development”
- Bates Bennett, ISE graduate student
- Gavin Denton, ISE graduate student
- Seunghan Lee, ISE assistant professor
- Lora Cavuoto, ISE professor, University of Buffalo
2nd place, Three Minute Thesis Competition:
- Abdur Rahman, ISE graduate student
3rd place, DAIS Data Analytics Competition:
- Abdur Rahman, ISE graduate student
- Amirhossein Eskorouchi, ISE graduate student
3rd place, IISE Mobile/Web App Competition:
- Mohamad Dehghan Bonari, ISE graduate student
Founded in 1948, the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers is a nonprofit dedicated to the research and education of industrial systems engineering.
MSU’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering is online at www.ise.msstate.edu and can be found on Instagram and LinkedIn.
The Bagley College of Engineering is online at www.bagley.msstate.edu and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube at @msuengineering.
By Aspen Harris
