Hodgson to speak on randomization in problem solving

Thom Hodgson, James T. Ryan professor and director of Integrated Manufacturing Systems Engineering Institute at North Carolina State University (NCSU), will be delivering a seminar on September 15 at 1:00 p.m. in Dunstan 202. The university community is invited to attend.

The lecture, "The Monkey with a Typewriter," will cover how engineers can use analysis, and the concept of randomization to solve the many combinatoric problems facing today's decision makers ranging from the scheduling of classes at a large university to the scheduling of maintenance operations during a wide spread power outage. A number of industrial problems and their real solutions will be reviewed.

Hodgson has served as head of the Industrial Engineering Department at NCSU; director of the division of Design and Manufacturing Systems at the National Science Foundation; professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Florida; operations research analyst at Ford Motor Company; and an officer in the US Army. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is the author or co-author of more than 70 journal articles and book chapters. He also served as a member of the US Army Science board.