Bolstered by a revamping of its undergraduate and graduate curricula in the mid-1960s to include a deep offering of courses in operations research, statistics, numerical methods, and computing, the department changed its name to Industrial and Systems Engineering and launched its Ph.D. program in 1967. Just over 40 years later, the program boasts a steady state size of over 50 Ph.D. students, with 13 graduating in the 2010 academic year.
As with its origins, the research strengths of the department lie in operations research, its applications and implementation, with a strong emphasis in optimization, algorithmic development and data analysis. Applications can be found in a variety of areas, including the optimization of transportation, logistics, manufacturing, military, healthcare, biological, biomedical, financial, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure systems.
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Much of the applied work is centered around the six centers and labs housed in the department. The Center for Applied Optimization, directed by Panos Pardalos, works on a wide variety of problems using various optimization and data mining techniques. The Computational and Stochastic Optimization (CSO) lab focuses on solving large-scale stochastic optimization problems generally in supply chain management or energy systems. The SCaLE (Supply Chain and Logistics Engineering) Center, RMFE (Risk Management and Financial Engineering) Lab and DOOR (Defense Oriented Operations Research) Lab are much more focused in their application areas. Ravi Ahuja and Joe Geunes direct SCaLE, Stan Uryasev directs the RMFE and Vlad Boginski directs DOOR. The Industrial Assessment Center, directed by Tim Middelkoop (and S. A. Sherif of MAE), helps companies deal with problems of energy management.
Funding comes from a variety of sources, including federal sources such as the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Office of Naval Research, Department of Defense (Defense Threat Reduction Agency), National Institute of Health, Veterans Administration Hospital, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Energy. State funding sources include the Florida Department of Transportation and the Florida Department of Health.
As given in the attached chart from ASEE (American Society of Engineering Education) data, the department spent over $4 million on research in 2010, with over $2 million from federal sources. The funding totaled from over 60 grants and contracts.
The graduate program was ranked 15th among all institutions in the Industrial/Manufacturing category by U.S. News and World Report in the 2011-2012 ranking. The ranking was 10th among public institutions. The latest ranking represented the sixth year in a row in the top 15 and 16th in a row in the top 20 programs in the nation.