UB ISE alumni will share their secrets to help their organization achieve success. 

Mario Adams-Campos, B.S. IE’ 85  worked for Ford Motor Company for over 28 years in various engineering and management roles, and served as a U.S. Navy Reservist for over 20 years. He holds an MBA from Butler University.

Valerie Beecher, BS IE ’00, MS IE ‘02 is the owner of Empire Ergonomics Consulting, LLC.  She has more than 15 years of ergonomics consulting experience in office and computer, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing, and telecommunications settings. Ms. Beecher is also an Ergonomist with Safety & Quality Plus, providing ergonomics consulting services for the SUNY Campus-Wide Jobsite Ergonomics Assessment Program. Ms. Beecher was formerly the Ergonomics Specialist for Upstate Medical University, and University Hospital, managing the Ergonomics and Safe Patient Handling Programs. She previously worked as an Ergonomist for Duke University and the Duke University Health System.

Sabrina Casucci, Ph.D. 2015, is Associate Professor of Teaching and Director of UB ISE’s Master of Engineering in Engineering Management Program. She has worked as a process and/or quality engineer for Advanced Refractory Technologies, Wilson Greatbatch Ltd (Now Integer), Curbell, Inc. and Chicago Faucets.  She has provided operations improvement consulting for many WNY companies including Taylor Devices, Armstrong Fluid Technologies, Upstate Niagara Cooperative, Inc. and Pfannenberg, Inc.

Bob Hanley, BS IE ’90 is SAP MM/QM Business Architect at Blue Spruce Consulting where he directs materials management and quality management, integration experience related to modules, and mentoring and training of new SAP consultants.  He has applied SAP tools to industry in consumer products; engineer to order; electronics using discrete and repetitive manufacturing models.

Nicolas Werthein, BS IE 96', is Managing Director for Commodity Financial Group company dedicated to the development of assets in Real Estate, Green Energy and Agriculture in Uruguay, Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay. He is currently developing the first Eco Island  in  Latam.

UB ISE alumni who have taken non-traditional career paths share their perspectives of how an education in ISE has contributed to their professional development and success

Patrick Abrami, B.S. 72,  M.S. ‘74 Serves in the NH House of Representatives for which he is Vice Chairman of the NH House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, Member of the Citizens Task Force to Study State Revenues and Expenditures, and Member of the Games for Charity Study Commission.  In his former career as an IE, he has consulted with over 400 clients in 30 states, often on projects devoted to improving hospital operations.

Oyin Akintan B.S. ’11 Serves as a Senior Analyst of Operations and Analytics at Gabriel & Co., a Manhattan fine jewelry designer and manufacturer.  She is cofounder of Via Asha Design, an online interior design service, and Digital Park, a creative tech startup studio, which allows her to apply her skills as and IE to entrepreneurial ventures.

Seth Myones B.S. ‘81 Serves as President and Founder of Ridge Consultants LLC that assumes interim senior operating & executive roles to perform company turnarounds and transitions for ESG portfolio focused businesses, assist municipalities in negotiating complex Environmental Services private/pubic contract agreements, serve as expert witness in related commercial matters, and perform acquisition due diligence for Environmental & Industrial Service businesses and associated infrastructure & equipment. 

Dr. Claire Nelson B.S '79. Serves as Chief Ideation Leader of The Futures Forum, a research and education practice specializing in bringing the power of strategic foresight, and the discipline of sustainability engineering to challenges facing organizations and communities. Dr. Nelson has been named among the Top 50 Female Futurists on Forbes, and has received a commendation in the US Congressional Record and honored as a White House Champion of Change.

Tom Wilde is B.S. IE ’80 Serves as Principal in KPMG’s Advisory Practice.  He has worked in a variety of client service and business unit leadership roles where he was responsible for the business and financial performance of groups  providing enterprise technology implementations, operations improvement, and outsourcing support to clients. He is currently serving as an executive leadership coach to new Advisory partners and MDs.

We celebrate the accomplishments of our female UB ISE Alumni as they share they’re perspectives and keys to success.

Ms. Latasha Beckman is the deputy director, Defense Standardization Program Office (DSPO) located in the Washington DC area. Since 2004, she has promoted the use of standardization as one of the key enablers to interoperability, securing the United States industrial base, reducing total ownership costs, and maintaining operational readiness. Committed to multilateralism for the sake of strategic standardization, Ms. Beckman has been actively involved in engagement with Military Departments, Defense Agencies, Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), and U.S. Allies and Partners to develop and execute standardization policy and procedures.  She is Lean Six Sigma (Green Belt) certified, and Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act certified in multiple career fields.

As vice president of strategic value, Karianne Gomez leads the development of NEW’s overarching products, services, and core strategic initiatives, including research and insights, learning programs, and solutions for corporate partners, NEW regions and members. Prior to joining NEW, Karianne focused on growth strategy, commercialization and transformation across a number of companies and industries, including Pampered Chef, HAVI, and ZS, a management consulting firm. Karianne serves on the board of the Chicago chapter of Compass Pro Bono and the University at Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council. She, her husband Joe, two daughters, and two mini dachshunds live in Chicago.

Maggie Ma is a Certified Human Factors Professional (CHFP) who specializes in maintenance human factors, and a Boeing Associate Technical Fellow. Maggie has 20 years of experience in conducting applied human factors research to improve aviation safety through developing various safety programs, has authored over 70 technical publications, has chaired technical sessions, and is frequently a speaker at aviation safety conferences and workshops. Maggie joined the Boeing Company in January 2012. Her primary responsibilities include providing implementation support to customer airlines and other maintenance organizations on a wide array of safety processes/programs. Maggie and her former lead, Dr. Bill Rankin received the Engineering Team of the Year Award for Boeing Commercial Aviation Services in February 2013. Maggie received the Boeing Service Culture Excellence Award in June 2018.

Dr. Bisantz B.S. IE '89, M.S., '91 is UB Dean of Undergraduate Education and Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo. She has made substantial contributions to the field of human factors engineering, including investigating new techniques for displaying complex and uncertain information to decision makers; supporting the transition in complex work domains from legacy and manual information systems to more integrated, supportive IT systems; modeling human judgment and decision making; extending cognitive engineering methods which can be used to model complex human-technology work domains; and understanding aspects of human trust in automated systems. This research has been conducted in a number of complex work environments, including health care, military systems, emergency management, and transportation; and has included interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers in health care and information fusion. She has been PI or CoI on over 15M in funded research projects from agencies including the National Science Foundation, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and numerous defense agencies. She is the past recipient of an NSF CAREER award, was recognized with a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Research and Creative Activity, and is a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). She has served as an Associate Editor or on the Editorial Board of a number of journals and has served HFES as a member-at-large of the Executive Council. She is the recipient of the HFES Fitts’ Education award for her contributions to human factors education and was the 2020 HFES WOMAN Mentor of the year. She is past chair of the UB ISE department and since 2018 has served as the University at Buffalo’s Dean of Undergraduate Education, where she is responsible for university wide leadership in undergraduate education, curriculum, and policy with oversight of general education and the UB Honors College. Her PhD is from the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

UB alumni from ISE’s Engineering Management program discusses their personal challenges and success stories in leading and managing in challenging engineering environments.

Tom Garvey B.S. ‘94, MEng ‘95

Director of Professional Services at 8x8,Inc, a provider of Communication Services (Voice, Video and Chat) in the Cloud.  Tom and his team are responsible for deploying 8x8's products to their largest enterprise customers as well as developing customized unique integrations with 3rd Party products.  Tom's time at UB prepared him to be a Business and Process consultant with clients like the US Navy, British Telecom, Level(3), Sprint and AT&T.  He has also focused on his Project Management capabilities achieving the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from The Project Management Institute, the UK Government's PRINCE2 certificate, and the Advanced Project Management Certification from Stanford University.

Robert Tom M.S. ‘90, MBA ‘97

Senior Director Product Engineering at Fisher-Price. Fisher-Price is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of children’s products. Robert earned his BS from the General Motors Institute (now Kettering University). His industrial experience and achievements span across several diverse industries including automotive, medical products and consumer hardgoods.

Michael Reilly  MEng ‘21

A seasoned business professional with 30 years’ experience in the industrial services sector including large scale construction and manufacturing. Mike entered his working career with humble beginnings and achieved success with hard work and complementary education.

Ryan Kuhlman  MEng ‘20

After 8 years of various engineering roles at Boeing, he has been working as a Design Engineer at Dunlop Motorcycle Tires for 5 years. As a recent alum of the Engineering Management ME, he is already implementing what he’s learned and looks forward to growing in his career.

ISE is not just about making incremental improvements to processes.  UB ISE alumni share their experiences in developing new products and processes that have addressed important technology and societal challenges.

Oyin Akintan B.S. '11

Worked as an industrial engineer in the fashion and home textiles industries and currently works as Senior Analyst of Operations and Analytics at Gabriel & Co. She is cofounder of Via Asha Design, an online interior design service, and Digital Park, a creative tech startup studio, which allows her to apply her skills as an ISE to entrepreneurial ventures.

Mitch Berg B.S. '84

Graduated from UB with lofty goals of "understanding how the brain works" in order to build cybernetic machines. This  lead him down various academic and professional paths, and at times to absolute failure!  He subsequently has lead teams on many successful entrepreneurial projects, and currently serves as Chief Technology Officer at Koddi.

Steven Tsengas B.S. '60

Completed an MS from the University of Rochester Simon Business School and PhD in Natural Health from Clayton College. After fifteen years in a variety of increasing level positions with companies such as Eastman Kodak and Babcock & Wilcox, he became an entrepreneur and launched over a half-dozen high tech and consumer companies. He has been issued  over 125 patents.

Nicolas Werthein B.S. '96

Is managing Director for Commodity Financial Group, a company dedicated to the development of assets in Real Estate, Green Energy and Agriculture in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. He is currently developing the first Eco Island in Latin America.

Please join us to celebrate the recently completed Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV) research and testing facility located near Crofts Hall on UB’s North Campus. Come see live UAVs in action via demonstration projects provided by the Departments of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering.

The completion of the 24,000-square-foot netted structure provides new opportunities for the operation and testing of drones. It is one of only several such facilities on university campuses throughout the country.

This facility represents the completion of Phase I of the construction of UB’s Structure for Outdoor Autonomy Research (SOAR) that will serve as the center of innovative UAV and automated land vehicle autonomy research and education. By creating a research complex dedicated to exploring the tremendous potential of un-crewed aerial and land vehicles, UB researchers, students and our partners will advance cutting-edge technological solutions to address challenges in transportation and delivery services, disaster response, and national security.

Creating the 272-game NFL playing schedule each year is a complex mathematical exercise whereby the League schedule makers search through millions of combinations and permutations in search of the mythical “optimal” schedule for that season. Taking into account factors such as television ratings, team competitive issues, and stadium availability, the process begins the day after the Super Bowl each February and lasts until early May when a suitable schedule is found and released to the teams, the television partners, and the fans. Utilizing mixed integer programming and combinatorial optimization algorithms, the search is spread across hundreds of physical and virtual computers in an effort to converge on the one schedule that satisfies as many of the constraints – and breaks as few of the rules – as possible.  While no schedule is perfect, the league’s ability to find suitable schedules to a problem whose complexity is always increasing has enabled the NFL to increase television viewership and revenues to unprecedented heights and to position itself to accommodate future scheduling constraints such as increased international travel and new distribution platforms.

Michael North attended Washington University and received a degree in computer science. Mike joined the National Football League in 1995 to help create and launch the NFL’s first website – known then as www.nflhome.com because a Chicago podiatrist had registered www.nfl.com to market his “No Foot Loss” treatment.  In 1998, North joined the Broadcasting department as the “computer guy” and has been working on the scheduling software ever since.

Charlotte Carey attended St. Lawrence University and joined the National Football League in 2014. Starting off in the Broadcasting department, Charlotte quickly looked up to North as a mentor and began looking for an opportunity to join schedule team. Carey was granted a spot in 2015 and works closely with Mike to produce and analyze schedules.