Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

09/03/2026

Dr. Jaesung Lee, an Assistant Professor in the Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University, has recently received three NIH and NSF grants as Principal Investigator, totaling approximately $1.94 million. The awards include a single-PI NIH/NIAMS R01 awarded through a joint NSF/NIH Smart Health program, an NSF FDT-BioTech award, and an NIH/NIDCR R21.

These projects establish an integrated research portfolio at the intersection of AI, engineering systems, digital twins, and biomedical prediction and evaluation, with methodological contributions in statistical and physics-informed machine learning, inverse problems, and trustworthy predictive modeling.

In the NIAMS R01, Dr. Lee serves as sole Principal Investigator and leads a multidisciplinary team with two co-investigators to establish digital twin systems for posture-aware, personalized prediction of spine fracture risk in older adults with osteoporosis.

The NSF FDT-BioTech project establishes a trustworthy preclinical digital twin framework for evaluating All-on-4 implant-prosthesis configurations and embeds verification, validation, uncertainty quantification, and robustness criteria to determine when layout comparisons are reliable.

The NIH/NIDCR R21 establishes patient-specific approaches for understanding dental bone properties and predicting how bone responds during dental surgical procedures. Across these projects, Dr. Lee’s work uses imaging data and experimental validation to transform limited biomedical data into reliable predictive models that can inform individualized treatment planning and surgical evaluation.

Dr. Lee's broader research also extends to statistical machine learning for advanced manufacturing, including an ongoing LIFT/DoW AMC project with the U.S. Department of War focused on data-driven virtual qualification and certification.

More about the project: https://lnkd.in/grCtAVTa
Learn more about Dr. Lee: https://lnkd.in/gx7v2xuG

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08/19/2026

Dr. ZJ Pei has been approved as our new Associate Department Head for Research. Dr. Pei is widely recognized as one of the department’s leading researchers and brings extensive experience from his work with both the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

His distinguished career and depth of expertise make him exceptionally well suited to provide the leadership and mentorship that will help advance our research mission and support the continued success of our faculty.

Congratulations Dr. Pei!

08/13/2026

Former student creates an endowed chair for our department. Check out the story: https://news.engineering.tamu.edu/news/2026/07/31/systems-engineer-and-energy-leader-strengthens-faculty-support/

08/12/2026

Texas A&M Engineering Undergraduate Poster Session was organized recently by the College of Engineering Graduate Programs.

Rohan Tolia, a mechanical engineering undergraduate student advised by Dinakar Sagapuram and Jobin Mathews, was awarded 3rd place among 85 participants for his research poster titled "A bubble raft analog for studying asperity interactions and adhesive wear."

The poster shows how a two-dimensional bubble raft was used as a physical analog of crystalline metals, where thousands of self-assembled bubbles mimic the ordered arrangement of atoms in a crystal. By bringing engineered surface “asperities” (small, rough bumps or uneven projections on a surface) into contact, microscopic deformation and shear of individual asperities can be visualized in real time.

“These microscopic asperity-level phenomena have historically been quite difficult to observe on metal surfaces. The simple bubble raft platform offers a new way to understand the fundamental origins of friction and wear, with implications for manufacturing, tribology and other industrial applications where surface interactions matter,” Sagapuram said.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rohan-tolia_im-proud-to-share-that-i-placed-3rd-out-activity-7491544915739369472-OSF0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAK7cEYB0SsAwK67U_zKYAu2SwubR-an4Gw

08/11/2026

Our department is in for ISE Day 2026.

On September 14, 2026, we will join IISE, CIEADH, and ISE departments across the country and the world for the second annual Industrial and Systems Engineering Day — an international celebration of the students, faculty, alumni, and industry partners showing the power of ISE every day.

ISE is where we optimize systems, center people, and drive smarter decisions.

and

RSVP and help amplify the field: https://www.linkedin.com/events/iseday20267452047524619735040/

08/04/2026

Texas A&M Industrial and Systems Engineering congratulates Jaesung Lee, assistant professor, for being awarded a research grant from the National Institutes of Health. The grant’s title is, “Toward Personalized Dental Surgery Planning: Dental Bone Stiffness Discovery and Strain Prediction Using Physics-Informed Machine Learning.”

His team will use physics-informed AI to generate patient-specific, three-dimensional maps of bone stiffness and strain for different implant sizes, positions, and angles. The project aims to help surgeons identify vulnerable regions, compare options before surgery, and reduce the risks of implants loosening, bone loss, or fractures.

"This is an important development! Funding from multiple federal agencies is remarkable and speaks to the merits and potential impacts of Dr. Lee's work," said Satish Bukkapatnam, department head.

06/29/2026

Dr. Evgenia Dimitriou, earned her Ph.D. at the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her doctoral research focused on nanoparticle inks for laser-based additive manufacturing of electronics.

"While this technology offers faster and higher-resolution printing than traditional electronics manufacturing methods, the inks themselves have received relatively little attention,” Dimitriou said.

Dimitriou joined Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering of Texas A&M in January 2025 as a Postdoctoral Researcher under the supervision of Dr. Zhijian (ZJ) Pei.

What motivated Dimitriou to pursue her postdoctoral research with Dr. Pei? “His work aligns closely with my interests and provides opportunities to explore new applications and collaborate with researchers from different disciplines,” Dimitriou said.

While here, she studied advanced manufacturing technologies for applications ranging from aerospace to biomedical engineering and investigated materials spanning ceramic-metal composites to bioinks for bioprinting.

“As I return to Greece, I plan to continue my research in advanced manufacturing and materials engineering while strengthening international collaborations,” Dimitriou said.

“My experience at Texas A&M has broadened my perspective on research and innovation, and I hope to share these lessons with my community while encouraging early-stage researchers to pursue international opportunities and experience the collaborative research culture that makes institutions like Texas A&M so impactful,” she added.

Dr. Pei summed up Dimitriou's work while here. “She has demonstrated strong research capability and independence, publishing several journal papers as the first author and making valuable contributions to multiple other papers."

06/26/2026

PhD student Fahim Kahn gets 2 papers accepted for publication.

Photo L - R: Jackson Sanders, Dr. Pei, Fahim Khan

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7473924230741635072/

I am pleased to share that I attended the North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC 54) at Penn State University and had the opportunity to present two research papers titled as, “Effects of Roller Traverse Speed and Roller Rotational Speed on Powder Bed Density and Green Part Densit...

06/25/2026

College students are increasingly affected by stress, anxiety, and depression, yet face barriers to traditional mental health care.

Dr. Farzan Sasangohar’s recent study evaluated the efficacy of a mobile health (mHealth) intervention, Mental Health Evaluation and Lookout Program, which integrates a smartwatch sensor and machine learning algorithms for real-time stress detection and self-management.

https://lnkd.in/gWmT-qCb

Using smartwatches to address health-related issues is not new to Sasangohar. His work on PTSD in veterans got national attention when the first users rode to Washigton, D.C. and met the vice president.

https://stories.tamu.edu/news/2025/05/02/texas-am-to-debut-ptsd-management-system/

06/12/2026

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
Robert Frost

The path a PhD student travels is an exploration of uncharted territory.

For Jackson Sanders the path started his freshman year when he joined Dr. Pei’s lab. There he investigated the properties of high-fidelity resin 3D-printed parts.

Multiple internships followed including summers with Stratasys, Joshua Tree Group, and KBSI. Then after a 2-week, NSF funded trip to Italy where he visited manufacturing facilities, he started an internship with Saint Gobain Research.

The next summer he led a team of 8 undergrads to advance his research.

All those internships and research led to an insight.

“The longer I’ve spent in the PhD program, the harder I feel the pull of the space industry. Space exploration poses some of the most difficult challenges humankind will ever attempt to triumph,” Sanders said.
So, this spring semester he started an internship with NASA.

“The program I joined was ‘Gateway’ space station, a successor to the ISS that would orbit the moon. My job was to translate engineering schematics (data & power cabling, fluid & air flow) into a digital systems model. This model aids decision making in anomaly situations and can be used to effectively plan maintenance activity,” Sanders said.

In summarizing the experience, “I learned a TON about spaceships, space operations, systems modeling, and multi-team engineering efforts. Watching the Artemis II launch live in the same auditorium where Gene Kranz gave his famous Apollo program speeches was pretty mind boggling,” Sanders said.

When asked what’s next for him, Sanders said, “I want to return to NASA as a research scientist and help establish a human presence on both the Moon and Mars.”