I have decided to install a large white board in one side wall of my office so that I can write, draw, or post any ideas that I need to generate or refine. The main obstacle to this was my books. As a book-lover (or book-collector), I have accumulated a significant number of books over years and they had literally packed two walls of my office (not mentioning those books sitting in my students’ office as well as at home). Not an easy decision, but there was no better solution but emptying the shelve. I emailed students who were enrolled in my courses to come and pick up any books they wanted as I piled books outside of my office.

In addition to the books, I realized that I have kept a lot of printed papers which are not mostly in digital form residing in my Paper2. Thus, getting rid of papers was much easier. What a change we made regarding digitization of documents and books over recent years.

Now I am waiting to see the white board installed over the break for a new beginning with half-full (hopefully).

One of my doctoral students, Krishna Reddi has successfully defended his dissertation today. The title of the dissertation is “A Conceptual Framework and Simulation Modeling of Engineering Change Management in a Collaborative Environment.” Krishna joined the Argonne National Laboratory.

He is my 5th doctoral students who earn the degree following Souhaila Al-Mutawa who is a Professor in Kuwait, Yucheng Kao who is a Professor in Taiwan, Jeon-il Moon who is a Professor in Korea, and Mukundan Srinivasan who works in Oracle.

Congratulations.

Dr. Peter Jackson of Cornell University visited us today, meeting several faculty members who are interested in Systems Engineering and giving a talk at the MAE graduate seminar series. The talk’s title was “Power of Pooling” showing how inventory management principles can easily save millions dollars for corporations.

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