Student Spotlight - Nancy Bissinger
Name: Nancy Bissinger
Year/Major: Master's in Industrial and Systems Engineering
Hometown: New Orleans, La.
Nancy Bissinger has strong ties to Auburn. Her father graduated from Auburn with a degree in veterinary medicine and she was born while he was in school. Those ties brought her back to Auburn in 1969 when she was searching for a school to earn her undergraduate degree. A visit to Auburn’s math department cemented the decision. There she found the type of learning environment that she needed to succeed.
Four years later, Auburn again rose to the top when Bissinger began to review options for graduate school. Although there was no applied math graduate programs at Auburn, Bissinger found what she wanted in industrial and systems engineering. "The program allowed me to apply my newly learned math skills in new ways."
But as it often does, life intervened, interupting Bissinger's education.
Thirty-five years later, when the opportunity to return to school opened, Bissinger was ready, and so was the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. "It meant a lot to me that the industrial engineering department and the graduate school were willing to work with me," she says.
Bissinger feels that her education at Auburn has helped her to be a thoughtful and innovative problem solver. "I am studying optimization methods that had not been discovered when I started my master's program, " she says. "Creative problem solving is the key to future business success regardless of the problems you have to solve."
The integrity of Auburn Engineering is important to her. "Auburn is known worldwide for its outstanding engineering faculty and programs," says Bissinger. "I am excited to be part of the research going on here and the opportunity to work with such top-notch faculty."
Auburn has given Bissinger many fond memories, but her best one is meeting the electrical engineering student that would become her husband. "I met him on the way to and from classes. We've been married for 34 years and he has been very supportive of my return to the classroom."
