The UH Cullen College of Engineering has named Gino Lim the new chair of its Department of Industrial Engineering, effective May 16. Lim takes over the role from Fritz Claydon, the college’s associate dean for administration and research, who led the department on an interim basis beginning in the summer of 2010.
Lim, a Hari and Anjali Agrawal Faculty Fellow with the department, earned his Ph.D. in industrial engineering in 2002 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in that university’s computer science department before joining UH in 2004.
At UH, Lim has been an investigator on grants totaling more than $8 million, with more than $2 million of that coming to UH and the balance to collaborators at other institutions.
His research currently includes partnerships with several institutions in the Texas Medical Center to optimize their patient and room scheduling, including The Methodist Hospital, the University of Texas Health Science Center, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Lim’s research also includes evacuation planning for major urban areas.
As chair, Lim said his five-year goals include working with his faculty to significantly increase external funding and scholarly activity. Doing so, he said, will result in a greater number of highly skilled IE graduate students enrolling at UH. He also hopes to make the department one of the top 25 in the nation according to the US News & World Report rankings. The department has moved steadily up that list in recent years and now stands at 38, he noted.
In the shorter term, Lim said he will meet with the IE’s faculty, staff and students to get a better sense of their needs. “I’d like to meet with them to find out what they need from me. I’m here to serve them, not rule them. The more they tell me what’s going on and what they need, the better I’ll be able to help them,” he said.