UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Janis P. Terpenny has been named the Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Department Head of the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State, effective Sept. 7.
Currently, Terpenny is the Joseph Walkup Professor and chair of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Iowa State University. She is also the director of Iowa State’s Center of e-Design, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry University Collaborative Research Center, and she serves as the technical lead of the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute’s Advanced Manufacturing Enterprise Area.
“Janis has accomplished a great deal throughout her career and I am confident that she will help propel industrial and manufacturing engineering at Penn State to new heights,” said Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering Amr Elnashai. “Her stature in the technical community will inspire our junior professors to follow her path and her experience as an NSF center director will be critical both for industrial and manufacturing engineering and other departments at Penn State.”
Terpenny will take over departmental duties from Harriet Black Nembhard, professor of industrial engineering, who has been serving as interim department head following the departure of Paul Griffin in December 2014. Nembhard will remain as a professor and the director of the Center for Integrated Healthcare Systems within the department.
“I am honored and humbled to be joining Penn State to lead the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering,” said Terpenny. “The department has a rich and storied history of contributions and leadership in the field and I am delighted to have the opportunity to cultivate partnerships with units across the university as well as with industry, government and other universities. I am looking forward to contributing to an inspired and passionate culture at Penn State that is driven by a common mission to prepare the next generation of globally-minded engineers and to make a difference in industry and society as a whole.”
Prior to joining Iowa State in 2011, Terpenny held faculty positions at Virginia Tech and the University of Massachusetts. She also served as the program director for the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education.
She was named a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers in 2010 and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2012, and was inducted as a Tau Beta Pi Eminent Engineer in 2011.
Terpenny’s research and teaching interests include engineering design process and methods and engineering design education, including engineering economics, intelligent and integrated design systems, and systems analysis/systems engineering.
“In addition to her technical accomplishments, Janis’s demeanor and exemplary communication skills blend very well with the department heads cohort within the College of Engineering,” added Elnashai.
Terpenny earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematical sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University and her master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial and systems engineering from Virginia Tech.
Founded in 1909, the Marcus department is the oldest industrial engineering department in the nation. The department offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in industrial engineering and is the home of twenty-six faculty members. The department strives to develop the next generation of global engineers who are prepared to address the evolving needs of industry and society through hands-on experience and innovative research.