IE Professor Receives the Lillian Gilbreth Award from the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering
IE Professor Bopaya Bidanda travels to Bengaluru, India to accept the Lillian Gilbreth Award and deliver the keynote address at the 65 National Convention of the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering
Bopaya Bidanda, the Ernest E. Roth Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, travels the world, but rarely gets to go home.
Bidanda recently traveled to Bengaluru, India to accept the Lillian Gilbreth Award from the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering (IIIE) at their annual convention. Bidanda is the first ever non-resident of India to receive the award, which is considered the highest honor of the institution.
“It’s especially heartwarming to receive recognition where my roots began,” Bidanda, who hails from the region, said. “It’s a culmination of all the global work that I have done, with the work itself being the highest reward.”
The Lillian Gilbreth Award is given to those who have distinguished themselves through substantial contributions to the field of industrial engineering.
“This award recognizes Professor Bidanda’s significant contributions through his outstanding research and leadership that has benefited practitioners, organizations and other researchers through his visionary events such as Doctoral Colloquium, alliances between the Indian and US professional societies, and his work in reverse engineering,” said Dr. Alluri V.V. Prasada Raju, vice chairman of IIIE.
As part of his acceptance, Bidanda was the keynote speaker at the convention. During his address, Bidanda provided recommendations on how to best elevate and utilize the discipline of industrial engineering in India.
A priority in Bidanda’s career has been to create access to high-quality industrial engineering education at all levels across the globe. For the past few years, he’s traveled to international conferences in multiple continents and most recently, received the 2023-24 Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award for his global efforts at integrating the global profession and building collaborations between countries and regions.
