Honoring A. "Ravi" Ravindran
A. “Ravi” Ravindran, an internationally renowned expert in the field of operations research and a member of the Penn State faculty since 1997, retired following the spring 2017 semester.
The Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering has established a fund in Ravindran's name to honor his extraordinary service and dedication to his students, industry partners, and the study of operations research throughout his career.
Career
Ravindran came to Penn State in 1997 following a 15-year career at the University of Oklahoma to take over as the head of the Marcus department, a position he held until 2001.
One of his first initiatives at Penn State was to lead a University-wide effort to establish the Enterprise Integration Consortium — an initiative that continues to thrive today — in order to partner with industry and provide innovative educational opportunities for students.
Prior to joining Penn State, he served as a professor and the director of the Wireless Electromagnetic Compatibility Center at Oklahoma, associate provost for academic affairs (1988-1995), and the director of the School of Industrial Engineering (1982-1988).
Ravindran began his academic career at the School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University where he spent 13 years working his way up the ranks from assistant professor to full professor. He also served as assistant head of the school from 1981 to 1982.
He has taught operations research courses at the undergraduate level and courses in multi-criteria decision-making and supply chain engineering at the graduate level.
Throughout his career, Ravindran has received numerous honors and awards, including the Fulbright Scholar Award, the Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE), the Franz Edelman Finalist Award for Management Science Achievement from the Institute of Management Sciences, and an IISE Fellow award. He also received numerous outstanding teaching awards.
In 2013, he received the then-named Institute of Industrial Engineers/Joint Publishers Book-of-the-Year Award and the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society Outstanding Teaching Award.
Ravindran has seven books and 80 refereed journal articles on operations research and the supply chain to his name. He has also supervised more than 30 doctoral dissertations throughout his career.
He is a member of IISE, INFORMS, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Operational Research Society of India, and the American Society for Engineering Education.
Ravindran received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California, Berkeley.
In 2015, a group of Ravindran’s former graduate students held an international symposium in India in his honor.
What's next?
Upon his retirement, Ravindran is planning to complete the manuscript for a book he is coauthoring, titled Service Systems Engineering and Management. He will then work on the second edition of his book, titled Supply Chain Engineering.
