Industrial engineering student wins Society for Risk Analysis award
By Nicole Capozziello
Published February 5, 2021
Kyle Hunt, a PhD student in the University at Buffalo Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently recognized with the 2020 Society for Risk Analysis’ Risk Policy and Law Student Merit Award.
Kyle Hunt
The award recognizes the best student abstract submitted and presented at the Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting based on its contributions to the risk policy and law domain.
Hunt’s winning abstract, “Technology Adoption for Airport Security: Modeling Public Disclosure and Secrecy in an Attacker-defender Game,” researches the previously unexplored question of whether or not security agencies should publicly disclose the adoption of new screening technology. The paper, which is coauthored by Puneet Agarwal, PhD student, and Jun Zhuang, professor, both from UB's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was also published in a top journal in the field, Reliability Engineering & System Safety.
“Kyle started his research career as a junior undergraduate student at UB ISE in 2017, and since then has been working on important problems on homeland security and disaster management. I am very pleased to see that his paper received the prestigious 2020 Society for Risk Analysis’ Risk Policy and Law Specialty Group Student Merit Award!” says Zhuang, who is Hunt’s advisor and as well as director of graduate studies in industrial and systems engineering. “This is a well-deserved recognition for Kyle’s intellectual contributions to the field.”
Hunt has been a student member of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) for two years, and presented his research at both the 2019 SRA Annual Meeting in Arlington, VA and the 2020 SRA Annual Meeting, held virtually. Hunt has published two papers in SRA’s hallmark journal, Risk Analysis, for which he also served as a peer-reviewer.
“My professional hope is to become a professor at an R1 university or a scientist at a leading research corporation, where I can continue growing my knowledge, working with students and faculty, and addressing critical issues in the fields of homeland security, national defense, and emergency management,” says Hunt. “Personally, I look forward to having a balanced life and spending quality time with my wife and our families/friends.”
Hunt received $500 and a certificate.
