Summer 2012

As a Fulbright scholar I am spending 42 days in Brazil this summer, lecturing, researching, meeting, visiting, planning and of course making friends (many).. Three main towns I visited are Campos dos Goytacazes, Ribeirão Preto, and Bauru. In between, I also visited Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Lecturing at IFF

Lecturing at IFF

Visiting Superporto do Açu with local residents

Cafe com Prosa at USP Ribeirão Preto

Cafe com Prosa at USP Ribeirão Preto

Lecturing at UNESP Bauru

Dr. Li

My doctoral student, Weilin Li successfully defended her dissertation. The dissertation title is “Modeling and Managing Engineering Changes in a Complex Product Development Process.” She will join Belcan Engineering at Caterpillar Champaign Simulation Center.

Congratulations.

Half full or half empty?

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).

New Doctor in house – Krishna Reddi

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.