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Home / Alumni

Alumni

SIE Alumni in Their Prime

SIE alumni in thriving businesses and at government agencies around the world are keeping every step of services and production primed to operate at maximum efficiency.

Perhaps you mastered the principles of artificial intelligence in a systems and industrial engineering lab, worked with transportation agencies to cut down traffic congestion, or learned the skills to manage operations for your company. Now you are inspiring the next UA systems and industrial engineers to make their own efficiency breakthroughs in countless fields.

For all you do in the service of the College of Engineering, the University of Arizona and society at large, thank you!

 

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Two men, one holding a reward, and a woman standing before between a podium and a projection screen.
Ted Landis accepts his award from department head Young-Jun Son and prior winner Cindy Klingberg.

SIE Alumni of the Year Award

Honoring Exceptional Graduates 

Know an outstanding alumnus or alumna? Recommend them for the SIE Alumni of the Year Award! 

The department offers the award each spring, in recognition of exceptional contributions to the systems and industrial engineering profession and the UA SIE community. Previous winners include Herb Burton, Cindy Klingberg, Ted Landis, Marla Peterson, Ann Wilkey and Mike O’Brien.

Submit a nomination for the 2022 Alumni of the Year.

Alumni Highlights

Realizing A Calling

Mike O’Brien, 2021 SIE alum of the year, graduated in 1996 and went on to work for companies such as Intel and Verizon.

I had a lot of appreciation for math, and I knew I wanted something that kept an intersection of analytics and human interactions. One of my classmates described what a systems engineer does, and I soon realized my calling.

Lifelong Expertise

David Ashton, BS 2013, went on to earn a Juris Doctor from Texas Tech University in 2017.

The systems and industrial engineering program... provides the foundation to becoming a critical thinker.

Agriculture Trailblazer

Diana Yakowitz was the first woman to earn a doctorate from the SIE Department, in 1991. She went on to work for the Agricultural Research Service, the research branch of U.S. Department of Agriculture, producing more than 40 papers.

SIE made sense. I realized, from there, any field was open. People with degrees from the SIE department end up working for a ton of different industries.

Top-Shelf Distiller

Ryan Kanto, BS/EM 2007, spent nearly a decade in the oil and gas industry before co-founding his own distillery, Quantum Spirits, where he uses science to create whiskey. He and his wife are making a gift to the college to help develop collaborative learning techniques, like those practiced by UA Distinguished Professor Paul Blowers.

We see a lot of opportunity, based on the work Dr. Blowers and others have done, to do something meaningful that moves the needle.
Networks for Needs

Claire Tompkins: Why We Need an Engineer in the White House

"We engineers see the world a certain way. We build things and fix things. In some ways, that’s a good job description for a president. In some ways, that’s a good job description for a president."

During the her 2016 Engineers Breakfast keynote address, “Why We Need an Engineer in the White House,” SIE alumna Claire Tomkins – founder of Future Family, an online platform focused on helping women and couples navigate fertility issues – discussed how our technology- and science-based society needs leaders who understand technology and know how to leverage data.

  • Employee Resources
The University of Arizona
Department of Systems & Industrial Engineering
1127 E. James E. Rogers Way
P.O. Box 210020
Tucson, AZ 85721-0020
520.621.6551

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