School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering celebrates spring 2025 achievements
The spring semester at ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ is wrapping up, and the School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science is excited to share its achievements in education and research so far in 2025.
Research news
A Stanford University study that looks at the impact of scientists worldwide identified 33 ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ faculty who were among the top 2% of all researchers in the world in their fields in 2023. Among them from the School of SSIE were Empire Innovation Professor Carlos Gershenson, Assistant Professor Fuda Ning and Distinguished Professor Hiroki Sayama.
As president of the Complex Systems Society, Gershenson is leading a new movement to change the peer-review system and the way that journals operate. He and Sayama — a fellow member of CSS’s executive board — point out that it can cost thousands of dollars to appear in the high-impact publications.
Assistant Professor Melissa Zeynep Ertem has led the first study assessing the benefits of in-school COVID-19 testing programs. The research used machine learning to examine data from more than 650,000 students attending over 2,100 Massachusetts elementary and secondary schools during the 2021-22 academic year.
Sayama and Professor Shelley D. Dionne (dean of Binghamton’s School of Management) published new research about the ideal way to organize employees to generate the best ideas.
Assistant Professor Yuxin Wang will lead a new study of the combined effects of two pollutants on the Mohawk River, a major supplier of drinking water for upstate New York.
Assistant Professor Sadamori Kojaku published a new paper showing that simple neural networks can find communities in complex networks with theoretical optimality, questioning the common view that more complex models outperform simpler ones.
Associate Professor Daehan Won and Professor Sangwon Yoon are co-investigators on a $517,969 grant from the National Science Foundation. It aims to integrate experiments, computational modeling and artificial intelligence/machine learning methods to develop a comprehensive framework for the electrospray deposition process to create microscopically thin films.
Gershenson and Assistant Professor Stephanie Tulk Jesso were featured in this article from the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ research magazine about how artificial intelligence will affect our workplaces in the future.
Student news
Bryan Cabrera ’26 got the chance to visit India over the winter break as part of the Watson College Scholars Program. He and two other Watson students went with two staff members to connect with students at PSG School in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and see other parts of the region.
Alumni news
Two SSIE alumni won BOLD (Bearcats of the Last Decade) 10 Under 10 Awards from the ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ Alumni Association this year. The award honors those who have graduated within the last 10 years, demonstrated a very high level of career achievement since leaving campus, and show great potential for future leadership.
Jann Gao, MS ’15, leads Blue Cottage of CannonDesign’s Healthcare Strategy and Analytics team, blending hard data with stakeholder insights and industry perspectives to enhance strategic planning for networks, buildings and campuses.
Ryon Batson ’21 co-founded FairSplit Inc. alongside two partners, taking a leap into the competitive world of technology startups. Together, they have built a company that is automating accounting, operations and human resource workflows through agentic artificial intelligence.