Past News
UTEP Advisory Committee
The UTEP Advisory Committee met on 10/19/2012 to discuss the curriculum and industry needs. Members of industry and faculty met to discuss the emerging challenges UTEP IMSE students may face during their developmental time as students as well as preparedness to join the work force.
Fostering strong relationships with current supporting companies in both the private and public sectors was among the top topics to ensure students graduate as quality and competent engineers.
NASA Texas Space Grant Consortium
A new UTEP Miners Team, composed of IMSE undergraduate students, will be participating in the Fall 2012 TSGC competition hosted by NASA. The team is advised by Dr. Humboldt Mandell, Dr.Eric Smith, and Dr. Ricardo Pineda. The team will be involved in developing a Martian Village to fully sustain human life on the planet where they will be applying Industrial, Manufacturing & Systems Engineering concepts.
MAES Symposium 2012 - Las Vegas
Systems Engineering graduate students (Astrid Barajas, Mathew Hernandez, Amanda Posadas, Hoong Yan See Tao) attended the National MAES Conference for Latinos in STEM to honor achievement and enable career access and advancement.
Mathew Hernandez was the recipient of one of the many scholarships given out during the event. The conference, hosted by America’s Navy, allowed for the blending of experience from industry and up-and-coming leaders in STEM.
February 2011
The Research Institute for Manufacturing and Engineering Systems (RIMES) has been awarded two contracts totaling $120,000.00 by the University Medical Center in El Paso. The scope includes TMAC engineers and students working on the design and implement a “split model” approach for the Emergency Department.
TMAC has been retained by the University Medical Center of El Paso to help them solve a vexing concern, namely, patient throughput in the Emergency Department. With TMAC's help, UMC is initiating a Lean journey in order to increase capacity while containing costs. With TMAC's guidance, UMC management mapped the hospital's entire value stream and identified the major constraints to stable patient "flow." First of all, low acuity ED patients are being seen in what is termed a production cell which co-locates the resources necessary to expedite the patient's journey to discharge. Secondly, a new medical admitting unit has been opened to keep patient's destined for admittance into the hospital from waiting for inordinately long periods of time. Finally, in order to keep patient beds open for admitting from ED into the hospital, TMAC has helped management design a paced discharge system which will facilitate patient discharges throughout the day instead of the more cumbersome method of batching discharges all before some arbitrarily set deadline.
RIMES has just completed Large-Scale Energy Storage (LSES) $50,000.00 project for Raytheon. The research looks at the associated benefits of LSES, such as increased energy reliability and availability, when available on a microgrid.
This study aims to create a model that quantifies the operational advantages and cost savings from adding storage to a microgrid. This study is being carried out by Dr. Ricardo Pineda, Dr. Ralph Martinez, Dr. Jose Espiritu, and 3 Research Assistants.
RIMES has been awarded a contract by the El Paso Orthopedic Surgery Group to assist in increasing the efficiency of operations and the quality of service delivery. Mr. Jesus Reverol has taken the lead on this project. We expect three students to be continuously involved in this project.
The following Systems Engineering graduate students have accepted offers for full time employment:
Nayeth Herrera LMC AERO in Fort Worth, TX.
Jose Falliner Raytheon Company
Aaron Prokopchuk LMC AERO in Fort Worth, TX.
Javier Flores Ericsson
RIMES researchers and associates presented eight (8) papers at the 2011 Live Virtual Constructive Conference of the International Test and Evaluation Association. Presenters and co-authors included research assistants Nayeth Herrera, Hugo Almaraz, Ramakanth Gona, Bharath Dantu, Manish Khadtare and Karla Aldous, as well as faculty members Dr. Ricardo Pineda and Dr. Eric Smith. Topics ranged from the Zachman framework, self-reference, enterprise architecture, system dynamics, complementarity, and cost estimation, with applications toward test and evaluation.
November 2010
11/13/10 -Jose Falliner, Nathan Pierluissi and Aaron Prokopchuk, systems engineering graduate students, were inducted into Alpha Chi National College Honor Society on November 13, 2010.
Alpha Chi is a coeducational academic honor society. Since 1922 its purpose has been to promote academic excellence and exemplary character among college and university students and to honor those who achieve such distinction. Membership is limited to the top 10 percent of juniors, seniors, and graduate students at colleges and universities that have a chapter of Alpha Chi. All three inductees have maintained a 4.0 GPA and will graduate in December with a Masters of Science in Systems Engineering. In addition to maintaining a perfect GPA, all three students worked as Research Assistants for the Research Institute for Manufacturing & Engineering Systems (RIMES). According to Ricardo Pineda, Director of RIMES, “Aaron, Jose, and Nathan are representative of the kind of students in our Systems Engineering program – sharp-minded engineers and articulate leaders. I expect them to do well in their new found careers.”
Aaron Prokopchuk has accepted an offer to work with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics at the Fort Worth facility. Jose Falliner will begin his Systems Engineering career with Raytheon in San Diego. Nathan Pierliussi will continue his career with BOEING at the El Paso Operations.
September 2010
9/1/10 - Mark Sassenfeld, a graduate student in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at UTEP spent his summer interning at the Coast Guard’s National Incident Command in Washington D.C. working directly with the government’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I was assigned to the US Coast Guard’s National Incident Command (NIC) to maximize collaborative utility of the Tactics and Planning (TAP) Table dispatched to the NIC for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said Mark. “I have briefed Admiral Thad Allen twice on the TAP table, as well as Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, and other senior Coast Guard officials. I also worked to bring additional capabilities to the Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) in order to enhance the Coast Guard’s maritime domain awareness.”
Mark also worked with a software developer and was assigned a research and development project to research the patterns and trends of maritime vessels. “Computer games represent some of the most sophisticated programming in the industry and I got to work with the actual developer of one of my favorite computer games. It was a rapid learning environment that I found both challenging and exciting.”
“Mark is one of six students in our program… with co-op assignments within the US Intelligence Community during the past year” said Dr. Ricardo Pineda, Director of RIMES and Chair of the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering department. The program was supported by Congressman Silvestre Reyes to provide opportunities for students from UTEP to work in the intelligence community. The long term goal is to expand UTEP and El Paso’s contribution and influence in the Global Intelligence community.
“Living in the D.C. area, I got to see and do so many things. I went to major league games, watched a performance at the Kennedy Center, and even attended a fund raiser for the Smithsonian Institution at the Finnish embassy. One of my highlights was a trip to the White House; it was President Barack Obama’s birthday and we all got to sing happy birthday to him before he boarded Marine One.”
Marked earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UTEP and applied for the program as a senior. He had just started working on his M.S. in Systems Engineering when the group got final approval for the co-op assignments. Now that Mark is back at UTEP, he expects to finish his degree by next year.
“While I really enjoyed my summer, I must admit it was great to see my friends and family when I got back. I was surprised at what a warm reception I received. This is a great town and UTEP has provided me with many opportunities. I hope to work in the intelligence community after I graduate and I don’t know exactly where that will take me. I’ll admit it is a little scary but I know I will always have a home here in El Paso!”