Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State professor Royce O. Bowden Jr. is the new head of the university's department of industrial engineering.
A faculty member for the past 13 years and among the Hearin Eminent Scholars designated by the Bagley College of Engineering, Bowden succeeded retiring department head Larry Brown July 1. Brown retired in early June after more than 30 years of service to the university.
"The industrial engineering faculty under Dr. Brown has developed a strong, modern curriculum that is serving our constituents extremely well," said Bowden, who joined the MSU faculty in 1992 and was named a full professor in 2002.
"It is a privilege to be working with the enthusiastic faculty, committed staff and talented students of industrial engineering," he added.
Kirk Schulz, dean of the engineering college, said Bowden "brings a dynamic personality and a compelling vision for excellence that will help elevate our industrial engineering program to national prominence."
A native of Picayune, Bowden did the seminal research in discrete-event simulation optimization using modern optimization algorithms. His work at MSU involves the design of computer algorithms to solve complex problems by manipulating engineers' computer simulation models of systems.
Bowden's research also provided the foundation for ProModel Corp.'s SimRunner TM--a simulation optimization package that is sold and used worldwide.
The new department head has a notable publication record of more than 25 peer-reviewed papers and two engineering textbooks. He also has acquired more than $1.55 million as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator of research projects supporting his optimization/decision support research theme.
In addition, Bowden has served on teams charged with obtaining and administering more than $13 million in research grants and contracts for two MSU research centers. He currently serves as deputy director of the National Center for Intermodal Transportation, a joint research center with the University of Denver.
He has received awards from the Sigma Xi research honor society and the Institute of Industrial Engineers for contributions to science and engineering. He also serves as faculty adviser of Alpha Phi Mu industrial engineering honor society, and is an associate editor of the International Journal of Modeling and Simulation.
Bowden earned a bachelor's degree in engineering technology from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1984. He completed additional undergraduate engineering coursework at MSU, and then earned master's and doctoral degrees in industrial engineering from MSU, respectively, in 1989 and 1992. Early in his career, he worked for Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Julie Lemons at (662) 325-8098 or jlemons@engr.msstate.edu.
GOLDEN TRIANGLE EDITORS: Bowden and his wife CeCelia have two sons--Taylor, 13, and Robert, 10.