We are excited to share that Emre Eraslan, a member of the HXRI Lab, contributed to the success of the 2nd Annual ISE Student Conference, held on May 2, 2025, at the Illini Union at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The event provided a platform for graduate students and invited undergraduate students in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (ISE) to present their research through oral presentations and poster sessions. Emre played an active role in supporting the event, helping to highlight the diverse research efforts within the ISE community.

In addition, HXRI Lab Director, Professor Avinash Gupta, served as one of the faculty supervisors for the conference. Professor Gupta’s guidance and mentorship were instrumental in ensuring the smooth organization of the event and in fostering a high-quality research environment for all participants.

The conference welcomed research contributions from all ISE concentrations, including data analytics, decision and control systems, design and manufacturing, financial engineering, operations research, healthcare technology, and human factors. It fostered an environment for students to share their thesis research, ongoing projects, and published work, while also promoting collaboration and networking among students, faculty, and guests. A poster competition recognized outstanding contributions across different domains.

In addition to the student-led sessions, the conference featured keynote talks by two distinguished speakers:

Professor Hamsa Balakrishnan, Associate Dean of Engineering and William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), delivered a keynote titled “Advanced Air Mobility: Will We Still Need Traffic Management?” Professor Balakrishnan discussed the critical need for effective traffic management systems as Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) technologies emerge. She highlighted the shift from centralized air traffic control toward decentralized, third-party service models and shared insights from her research team’s efforts to address these challenges and advance future sky-based mobility solutions.
Professor Young-Jun Son, James J. Solberg Head and Ransburg Professor at the Edwardson School of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University, presented on “Multi-paradigm, Online, Hierarchical Simulation and Decision Models for Planning and Control of Complex Systems.” His keynote explored how advanced simulation techniques, integrated into a simulation-based planning and control (SPC) framework, can improve forecasting and real-time decision-making. Through case studies spanning service systems, smart manufacturing, and autonomous vehicles, he demonstrated how these methods enhance efficiency and intelligence in complex operations.

HXRI Lab congratulates all presenters and awardees and is proud to have been part of a conference that showcases innovation, fosters collaboration, and supports the next generation of researchers in industrial and systems engineering.