Kimberly Ellis named W.S. 'Pete' White Chair for Innovation in Engineering Education
Kimberly Ellis, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named the W.S. “Pete” White Chair for Innovation in Engineering Education by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The W.S. “Pete” White Chair for Innovation in Engineering Education was established by American Electric Power to honor Pete White, a 1948 graduate of Virginia Tech, and to encourage new interest in the teaching of engineering and to improve the learning process. Recipients hold the chair for two years.
Since joining Virginia Tech, Ellis’ research has focused on design and analysis of production and logistics systems in collaboration with industry partners. Through her courses, Ellis has led extensive teaching innovations by integrating interactive in-class problem-solving exercises, culminating experiential simulations, and insights from her industry-informed research and professional experiences to stimulate curiosity and demonstrate powerful problem-solving approaches.
She redesigned a required undergraduate course in industrial and systems engineering, ISE 4204 Production Planning and Inventory Control, more than 20 years ago and introduced an interactive Production Planning Game, affectionately known by students as “The Game.” The Game requires teams of students to assume the roles of various functions in a manufacturing facility, such as president, chief financial officer, inventory manager, or production manager, and to develop and execute production plans for the assembly of three different products with time varying customer demand.
Ellis then collaborated with another faculty member, Natalie Cherbaka, collegiate professor and industrial and systems engineering undergraduate program director, and a team of students to transform The Game from a paper-based format to an online gaming platform. The digitized version of The Game accommodates large class sizes, facilitates on-line modality as needed, reduces resource requirements, promotes higher-level decision-making skills among students, increases student engagement, and increases flexibility of delivery to meet the needs of a diverse student population. In addition to its use at Virginia Tech, this revised version has been successfully used at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Johns Hopkins University.
Ellis also has contributed to educational initiatives beyond Virginia Tech through her involvement in the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education. Membership in the council, which is sponsored by the Material Handling Industry, an industry trade association, is by invitation only and consists of faculty from both national and international programs that emphasize material handling and logistics.
Ellis’ teaching contributions and innovations have been recognized at Virginia Tech with the William Wine Award in 2021, with an XCaliber Award in 2022, and with the nationally competitive Innovation in Education Award given by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers in 2023.
Ellis received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee and her Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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