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Newsletter
Newsletter Editors: Shancong Mou,
Dr. Mostafa Reisi Gahrooei, and Dr. Dan Li
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Message from the Division President |
Dear fellow QCRE members,
Welcome to IISE's Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) division. It is my great honor to serve as the division president of QCRE. As we look back on the achievements of the past year, I am filled with pride and gratitude for the dedication and enthusiasm from our society members. In particular, the QCRE track at the 2023 IISE Annual Conference was a big success, with record high abstract and paper submissions, well-received special sessions, and an engaging data challenge competition generously sponsored by our industrial partner, ProcessMiner. On behalf of the QCRE Board of Directors, I want to extend congratulations to our members for the remarkable accomplishments we have collectively achieved. Your continued support of the QCRE is truly appreciated. I also wish to express our gratitude to Dr. Ramin Moghaddas, our former President, the QCRE Board of Directors, and our dedicated volunteers for their invaluable contributions to the division over the past year.
The QCRE Board will continue to organize a variety of activities and events for our members in the coming year. Major activities include coordinating the QCRE track of the 2023 IISE Annual conference, organizing webinars, and editing newsletters. I would also like to bring your attention to some new initiatives we are launching this year.
First, under the leadership of Dr. Xiaowei Yue (yuex@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn), we will introduce a student mentorship program. This program will pair QCRE student members seeking guidance with faculty members who are enthusiastic about mentoring and can offer insights into academic or industrial career paths, research interests, and achieving a healthy work-life balance. We will share updates about this mentorship program as it unfolds.
Second, our news media team, led by Drs. Dan Li (dli4@clemson.edu) and Mostafa Reisi Gahrooei (mreisigahrooei@ufl.edu), has introduced an exciting new monthly member spotlight program. This program will highlight one QCRE member each month. Please let us know if you have any exciting research project and/or research findings you’d like to share with our community.
QCRE is open to any other exciting initiatives that can benefit our division members. If you are interested in contributing to the QCRE division, whether through ideas, collaboration, or service, please don't hesitate to contact me at yxiang4@uh.edu or any of the Board members. We eagerly welcome your engagement and enthusiasm as we work together to enhance the QCRE community.
Sincerely,
Yisha Xiang
IISE QCRE Division President, 2023-2024
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QCRE Board of Directors (2023-2024) |
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President:
University of Houston
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Past president:
University of Miami
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President-elect:
North Carolina State University
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Board member:
Clemson University
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Board member:
Virginia Tech
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Board member:
Sam Houston State University
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Board member:
The University of Iowa
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Board member:
Binghamton University
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Student board member:
Univ. of Houston
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2023 IISE Annual Conference &
Expo QCRE Award Winners
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Winner of the Best Track Paper Award |
"RGI: Robust GAN-inversion for Mask-Free Image Inpainting and Unsupervised Pixel-Wise Anomaly Detection”
WShancong Mou, Xiaoyi Gu, Meng Cao, Haoping Bai, Ping Huang,
Jiulong Shan, and Jianjun Shi
Georgia Institute of Technology
Apple Inc.
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Winner of the 2023 QCRE Industrial Challenge |
“Sequence-to-Sequence LSTM for
Fungal Spores Concentration (FSC) Prediction”
Raghav Gnanasambandam, Jihoon Chung, Bo Shen, James Kong
Virginia Tech
New Jersey Institute of Technology
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Winner of the 2023 QCRE Teaching Award |
Dr. Yu Liu
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
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Winner of the Best Student Paper Award |
“DETONATE: Nonlinear Dynamic Evolution Modeling of
Time-dependent 3-dimensional Point Cloud Profiles”
Michael Biehler
Georgia Institute of Technology
Advisor: Dr. Jianjun Shi
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Winners of the Best Student Poster Award |
“Physics-constrained Deep Active Learning for
Spatiotemporal Modeling of Cardiac Electrodynamics"
Jianxin Xie
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
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Michael Biehler, Ph.D. student, Georgia Institute of Technology, was awarded the George Fellowship for academic strength and commitment to health systems, the Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship from the American Statistical Association (ASA) and was selected to participate in NextProf Nexus, a workshop organized by the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech as well as the Cornell Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) Young Researchers Workshop.
Petros Papadopoulos, Ph.D. student graduated from Rutgers University in 2023. PhD Dissertation title: “Data-driven Optimization of Operations and Maintenance in Offshore Wind Farms.” Advisor: Dr. Ahmed Aziz Ezzat. Current Position: R&D Engineering at ThermoVault Inc., Belgium.
Shancong Mou, Ph.D. student, Georgia Institute of Technology, have received the 2023 Best Track Paper Award Winner from Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering, John S.W. Fargher Jr. Scholarship, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (2023) and Angela P. and Reed J. Baker Research Excellence Award, School of ISyE, Georgia Institute of Technology (2023).
Ahmed Aziz Ezzat, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, is the lead PI on a new project entitled: "AI- powered Physics-based Tool for OSW Forecasting and Grid Integration, supported by the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium (Joint DOE/NYSERDA funding). The project will develop, test, and deploy a technology to forecast the wind at key offshore development areas and predict wind plant power output using a physics-based model coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Ana Maria Estrada Gomez, Assistant Professor, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, Dr. Estrada Gomez has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the project titled "Therapeutic and Diagnostic System for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Integrating Data Science, Synthetic Biology, and Additive Manufacturing." The project falls under the Smart and Connected Health program.
Mostafa Reisi, Assistant Professor, University of Florida, received $1,188,351 from National Science Foundation (NSF) as the PI for the project entitled, CPS: Medium: Connected Federated Farms: Privacy- Preserving Cyber Infrastructure for Collaborative Smart Farming.
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QCRE Member Spotlight
In each issue of QCRE newsletter, we will feature one outstanding QCRE member who has demonstrated the excellence in the QCRE related fields, and the member can be from academia, industry or our students.
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In this issue of QCRE newsletter, we feature our outstanding member, Dr. Jia (Peter) Liu. Dr. Jia (Peter) Liu is an Assistant Professor, the Ginn Faculty Achievement Fellow, in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Auburn University. He focuses on interpretable data-driven modeling for complex additive manufacturing (AM) processes with heterogeneous sensor data to achieve online process monitoring, product quality prediction, and control for a variety of AM processes, such as material extrusion, binder jetting, and powder bed fusion. He has been working in this area for seven years, served as PI and Co-PI of multiple government-funded projects, totaling $2M+ over the past 3 years from NSF, NIST, FAA and DOD, and published 20+ peer-reviewed articles in renowned journals in this area. He is a member of IISE, INFORMS, SME, and has won the 2023 NSF CAREER award and the 2021 Auburn University Early Career Development Grant. Here is Dr. Jia (Peter) Liu’s Story with QCRE:
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Can you share a brief overview of your academic journey so far?
I received a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University, China. After working in chemical manufacturing for 6 years, I really got into statistical learning and reliability analysis. So, I came to the US to pursue a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering and an M.S. in Statistics at Virginia Tech.
After graduation, I worked as a data scientist in industry before I joined Auburn as an assistant professor and stayed. I really enjoy working in academia because I can do the research I am passionate about with full flexibility, push the boundaries of science and technology advancement with my own efforts, and educate the future generation of engineers.
How would you describe your current research focus to a non-expert, and why did you choose this research topic?
Additive manufacturing is a new type of manufacturing technology that can fabricate any complex geometry by adding materials layer by layer without wasting materials and time. I first knew about additive manufacturing through a TED talk in 2012 and was fascinated. However, on the other side, additively manufactured parts usually have less strength and more defects than the parts manufactured by traditional technologies. My research is to understand the new technology and improve the quality of AM parts to promote innovative design, and efficient and sustainable manufacturing.
What has been the most rewarding project you've worked on so far?
It has to be the project supported by NSF Future Manufacturing Seed Grant: Federated Deep Learning for Future Ubiquitous Distributed Additive Manufacturing, which aims to develop a unified algorithmic and training framework to enable consistent and reliable production in a privacy-preserving, insight-sharing manufacturing network. I am excited about the idea of using collective intelligence to improve data sparsity and solve challenging problems in manufacturing while preserving data privacy for each manufacturer. Also, this is the first project I am the PI, and I have learned a lot from working with an interdisciplinary team and leading the project. We are making steady progress and hoping to share great results with the community later.
How do you foresee your research area evolving over the next few years?
In the next few years, I will continue my efforts in understanding AM processes and investigating their applications in complex situations. I will integrate fundamental physics knowledge, advanced sensor technologies, and new AI models to improve the understanding of AM processes and the prediction accuracy of quality without compromising interpretability.
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What would you do differently if you returned to your graduate student life?
If I were a graduate student again, I would try more proactively to communicate with professors in QCRE and learn more about research and career development from them. In retrospect, I was full of admiration for their achievements. As an eight-year QCRE member, looking back at all the interactions and communications with them, I feel extremely lucky and grateful to get enormous help from them and the great platform QCRE provides for a student like me to grow and flourish.
Any other suggestions to the QCRE students?
I would encourage the QCRE students to make the most out of the resources provided by the QCRE community to advance their knowledge and skills and prepare for future careers. QCRE is a dynamic community with many distinguished researchers and talented students working on cutting-edge topics in a variety of areas.
QCRE hosts many activities for you to present your work, communicate with professors and fellow students from other schools, and build your professional network. These can greatly benefit your growth and your future career, no matter whether you plan to join academia or industry.
Moreover, I would strongly suggest that QCRE students maintain tight connections with the community even after graduation. This will help you keep up with the cutting-edge research and stay in a dynamic professional community for your career development. I have benefited a lot from being a QCRE member since my Ph.D. time. I was and have been inspired by the research in QCRE for my own research and helped by the many professors in my career. Especially when I wanted to join academia after working in the industry for two years, the continued connections I had with the QCRE community definitely helped me to redirect my career and successfully navigate through that challenging time. I am sincerely grateful for that.
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Research Story
In each issue of QCRE newsletter, we feature a research story. This could be a novel research work pursued by a group of QCRE researchers, or a topic of relevance to the QCRE community.
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In this issue of the newsletter, we feature Prof. Jing Li to take her fresh perspectives and vision on precision medicine: Weakly Supervised Transfer Learning with Application in Precision Medicine, co-authored with her Ph.D. student Linchao Mao. Professor Jing Li is a Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a core faculty in the Center for Machine Learning at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2020, she was a Professor at Arizona State University and is a co-founder of the ASU-Mayo Clinic Center for Innovative Imaging. Dr. Li’s research develops statistical machine learning algorithms for modeling and inference of complex-structured datasets with high dimensionality (e.g., 3D/4D images), multi-modality, and heterogeneity. The objectives of the methodological developments are to provide capacities for monitoring & change detection, diagnosis, and prediction & prognosis. The application domains mainly include health and medicine, focusing on medical image data analytics as well as fusion of images, genomics, and clinical records for personalized and precision medicine.
Her research outcomes support clinical decision making for diagnosis, prognosis, and telemedicine for various conditions affecting the brain, such as brain cancer, post-traumatic headache & migraine, traumatic brain injury, and the Alzheimer’s disease. Her research received Best Paper awards from various professional venues such as IISE Transactions, IISE Annual Conferences, INFORMS Data Mining and Decision Analytics, American Academy of Neurology, America Headache Society, etc. Her research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, DOD, and industries. She is an NSF CAREER Awardee.
Dr. Li is a former Chair for the Data Mining Subdivision of INFORMS. She is currently a Senior Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and a Department Editor for IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering.
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Weakly Supervised Transfer Learning (WS-TL)
by Linchao Mao
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In this issue of the newsletter, we feature Prof. Jing Li to take her fresh perspectives and vision on precision medicine: Weakly Supervised Transfer Learning with Application in Precision Medicine, co-authored with her Ph.D. student Linchao Mao. Professor Jing Li is a Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a core faculty in the Center for Machine Learning at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2020, she was a Professor at Arizona State University and is a co-founder of the ASU-Mayo Clinic Center for Innovative Imaging. Dr. Li’s research develops statistical machine learning algorithms for modeling and inference of complex-structured datasets with high dimensionality (e.g., 3D/4D images), multi-modality, and heterogeneity. The objectives of the methodological developments are to provide capacities for monitoring & change detection, diagnosis, and prediction & prognosis. The application domains mainly include health and medicine, focusing on medical image data analytics as well as fusion of images, genomics, and clinical records for personalized and precision medicine.
Her research outcomes support clinical decision making for diagnosis, prognosis, and telemedicine for various conditions affecting the brain, such as brain cancer, post-traumatic headache & migraine, traumatic brain injury, and the Alzheimer’s disease. Her research received Best Paper awards from various professional venues such as IISE Transactions, IISE Annual Conferences, INFORMS Data Mining and Decision Analytics, American Academy of Neurology, America Headache Society, etc. Her research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, DOD, and industries. She is an NSF CAREER Awardee.
Dr. Li is a former Chair for the Data Mining Subdivision of INFORMS. She is currently a Senior Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and a Department Editor for IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering.
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Call for Abstracts: QCRE Track |
The QCRE division of IISE is sponsoring the QCRE Track at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo 2024 . As Track Chairs of the QCRE Track, we encourage you to contribute to the Conference and Track by submitting a 250-word abstract or presentation summary. Authors of accepted abstracts and presentation summaries will be invited to share their work in a conference session. In addition, there are opportunities to organize and/or participate in Special Sessions (Panels, Workshops, etc.). If you are interested in a special session, please contact us directly by November 10, 2023. For more details about submission requirements, please refer to the following CFP: https://tinyurl.com/2w33zp34
Abstract Submission Deadline: November 17 , 2023 .
Full Paper Submission Deadline: February 9 , 2024
Speaker Registration Deadline: March 22, 2024
For inquiries and registration, please contact the QCRE Track Chairs: Xiaolei Fang (xfang8@ncsu.edu), Zimo Wang (zimowang@binghamton.edu) and Syed Hasib Akhter Faruqui (shf006@shsu.edu)
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The QCRE division of IISE organizes multiple competitions and awards to recognize research and educational excellence. This year, we invite submissions to the competitions and awards listed below. The competition finalists will be invited to present at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo. The winners and awardees will be announced at the QCRE Town Hall meeting and recognized in the upcoming QCRE newsletter. Please keep an eye out for more details about the competitions on our social media. Competition details can be found as follows:
Abstract Submission Deadline: November 17, 2023
Full Paper Submission Deadline: February 9, 2024
Finalist Notification: March 8 , 2024
Award Presentation: May 18th – 21st, 2024
at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo
QCRE Industrial Data Challenge Competition
QCRE Best Track Paper Competition
QCRE Student Paper Competition
QCRE Student Poster Competition
Student Registration for Poster Competition is April 15th , 2024.
Award Presentation for the Poster Competition is May 18th – 21st
at the 2024 IISE Annual Conference & Expo.
QCRE Teaching Award
The QCRE division of IISE is inviting submissions to its annual QCRE teaching award. The award recognizes QCRE members for excellence in teaching an undergraduate course in quality, statistics, data science/analytics, and reliability methods or applications. For more details about the application process, eligibility requirements, and evaluation criteria, please visit:
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Upcoming Webinars: Save the Date |
Assessing the Calibration and Performance of Attention-based Spatiotemporal Neural Networks for Lightning Prediction
November 14, 2023
1 pm - 2 pm CT
Dr. Nathan Gaw, Assistant Professor of Data Science in the Department of Operational Sciences at Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, USA.
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Advancing and Accelerating Qualification and Characterization through Stochastic Inverse Modeling
November 28, 20223
1 pm - 2 pm ET
Dr. Ashif Iquebal, Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at ASU.
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Call for Entries to the Division's Quarterly Newsletter |
The division is publishing its quarterly newsletters and hereby soliciting news entries. This is a great opportunity to showcase interesting yet impactful researches, professional practices and educational efforts within the division. The solicited story will go into the following blocks in the newsletter: Research on the News, Practical Applications, and Education and Outreach. It would be great if you could:
- Prepare your story write-up within 300 words (write it in plain language for diverse audiences).
- Provide a nice picture together with the story.
- Provide a link (if possible) to a detail version of the story (hyperlink to your project public webpage, etc.).
Please email your information and materials to Dr. Dan Li at dli4@clemson.edu. Your entry will appear in the next available division newsletter.
PDF version of our newsletters are available for our members on the IISE Connect (QCRE division Library folder), as well as our Facebook Page, LinkedIn Profile, and Twitter.
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Have you considered a corporate membership? If not, why? Companies large and small enjoy the benefits. Include your entire team and receive all the benefits of individual membership, plus lowest rates to attend the Conferences and much more.
Contact Doug Long IISE Global Director for Strategic Alliances for more details.
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