The Grainger College of Engineering

Rakesh Nagi

Rakesh Nagi
Rakesh Nagi
  • Donald Biggar Willett Professor in Engineering
(217) 244-3848
106 Transportation Building

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Biography

Rakesh Nagi is Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He served as the Department Head of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (2013-2019). He also served as the Interim Director of the Illinois Applied Research Institute (2016 - 2018). He is an affiliate faculty in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Science and Engineering.

Previously he served as the Chair (2006-2012) and Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) (1993-2013). He received his Ph.D. (1991) and M.S. (1989) degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park, while he worked at the Institute for Systems Research and INRIA, France, and B.E. (1987) degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Roorkee (now IIT-R), India.

He is a recipient of IIE Fellow Award (2010), UB's "Sustained Achievement Award" in recognition of outstanding achievements in scholarly activity (2009), Business First of Buffalo's "40 under Forty" award (2004), SME's Milton C. Shaw Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (1999), IIE's Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer Award in Academia (1999), and National Science Foundation's CAREER Award (1996). His papers have been published in journals including IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Computers in Industry, Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Management Science, Operations Research, Naval Research Logistics, European Journal of Operational Research, Annals of Operations Research, Computers and Operations Research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, and ASME and IEEE Transactions. Dr. Nagi's major research thrust is in the area of production systems and applied/military operations research. His research interests are in Location theoretic approaches to Facilities Design, Agile Enterprises and Information-Based Manufacturing, Just-In-Time production of assemblies, and Information Fusion.

Academic Positions

  • Donald Biggar Willett Professor in Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, August 2013- .
  • Head, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, August 2013- October 2019.
  • Interim Director, Illinois Applied Research Institute, November 2016- March 2018.
  • Chair, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, June 2006 – August 2012.
  • Professor, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, August 2005 – August 2013.
  • Associate Professor, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, September 1998 – August 2005.
  • University at Buffalo Faculty Senate Committee, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, July 2002 – June 2004.
  • Director of Graduate Studies, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, August 1999 – August 2001.
  • Assistant Professor, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, September 1993 – August 1998.
  • Research Associate, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, Institute for Systems Research, December 1991 – August 1993.
  • Visiting Researcher, INRIA-Lorraine, Institut National de Recherché en Informatique et en Automatique, Nancy and Metz, France, summer 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 2002.

Research Areas

  • Data Analytics
  • Decision and Control Systems
  • Design and Manufacturing
  • Networking and distributed computing
  • Operations Research
  • Social, Human, and Engineering Systems
  • Theory and Algorithms

Research Topics

Selected Articles in Journals

Articles in Conference Proceedings

  • Hiyadetoglu, M., Mailthody, V.S., Pearson, C., Ebrahimi, E., Xiong, J., Nagi, R., and Hwu, W-M. "Efficient Inference on GPUs for the Sparse Deep Neural Network Graph Challenge 2020," High Performance Extreme Computing Conference (HPEC), 2020 IEEE, Waltham, MA, 24-26 September 2020. [DARPA Graph Challenge Champion!]
  • Lobatto, M., Nagi, R., Norris, W.R., Nottage, D., and Soylemezoglu, A. "Comparison of Semantic Segmentation Deep Learning Models for Land Use Mapping: Site Characterization for Construction Site Preparation," 2021 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference, Online, May 2021.
  • Vadrevu, S., Xiong, J., Hwu, W-M., and Nagi, R. "xER: An Explainable Model for Entity Resolution using an Efficient Solution for the Clique Partitioning Problem," 2021 Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL), Mexico City, MX, 11-16 June 2021.
  • Sengupta, R., and Nagi, R. "Decentralized Makespan Minimization for Uniformly Related Agents," 2021 IEEE 17th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), Lyon, France, 23-27 August 2021.
  • Anzoom, R., Nagi, R., and Vogiatzis, C. "A Framework To Assess Risk of Illicit Trades Using Bayesian Belief Networks," APMS 2021 International Conference Advances in Production Management Systems, Nante, France, 5-9 September 2021.
  • AlMasri, M., Vasudeva, N., Nagi, R., Xiong, J., and Hwu, W-M. "HyKernel: A Hybrid Selection of One/Two-Phase Kernels for Triangle Counting on GPUs," High Performance Extreme Computing Conference (HPEC), 2021 IEEE, Waltham, MA, 21-23 September 2021. [DARPA Graph Challenge Student Innovation Award.]

Honors

  • IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (2022). Recognizes outstanding research in the ISE profession. It is given for a career of accomplishments that broadly benefited practitioners, organizations, or other researchers rather than for a single activity or application. (2022)
  • INFORMS, MAS Koopman Prize (2021)
  • DARPA Graph Challenge (DNN), Champions! (2020)
  • INFORMS, MAS Koopman Prize (2018)
  • DARPA Graph Challenge, Finalist and Innovation Award. (2018)
  • DARPA Graph Challenge, Honorable Mention. (2017)
  • IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, Best paper award from journal issues from July 2011 through June 2012. (2013)
  • Fellow of IIE, the Institute of Industrial Engineers. (2010)
  • Sustained Achievement Award. (2009)
  • Promising Inventor Award, SUNY/RF. (2004)
  • Business First of Buffalo’s 40 under 40 award. (2004)
  • International Who's Who of Professionals. (2004)
  • IIE’s Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer Award in Academia. (1999)
  • SME’s Milton C. Shaw Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award. (1999)
  • Invited participant to National Academy of Engineering's Fifth Annual Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering. (1999)
  • National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award. (1996)
  • University at Buffalo, Riefler Award. (1995, 1997)
  • University of Maryland, Systems Research Center's Outstanding Systems Engineering Graduate Student Award. (1991)
  • University of Maryland, Systems Research Center Graduate Fellowship. (1989, 1990, 1991)
  • University of Maryland, Graduate School Fellowship. (1989)
  • University of Roorkee Merit Prize for overall first rank in Mechanical Engineering. (1987)
  • University of Roorkee Scholarship for all four years of undergraduate study. (1983-1987)
  • Silver medal for obtaining highest marks in Machine Design group in B.E. (1987)
  • Silver medal for obtaining highest marks in Applied Thermo-Science group in B.E. (1987)

Recent Courses Taught

  • IE 533 - Big Graphs and Social Networks
  • SE 261 - Business Side of Engineering

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