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Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering

Where data, design and decision-making converge.

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When you join ISE at Grainger Engineering, you join a community where big ideas meet bold collaboration. At Illinois, you’ll design data-driven solutions, lead cross-disciplinary teams and shape innovations that make industries—and lives—work better.

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Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineers at Work

From inspired thinking to real impact — explore the stories of ISE.

NAIRR Pilot Award supports ISE professor's work on reliable AI agents

Grainger College of Engineering

ISE News
November 11, 2026

Yingying Li received a 2026 National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot Award for her project, “Stable and Scalable Contextual Reinforcement Learning for Nonstationary and Networked Systems.” The award supports the project through the NAIRR Pilot. Li's research areas include reinforcement learning, learning-enabled control and multi-agent/network decision-making.

Why relying on prediction markets in the elections may not be a safe bet

The Hill

ISE In the Media
November 2, 2026

In an opinion piece for The Hill, ISE Affiliate Professor Sheldon H. Jacobson examines the strengths and limitations of both polling and prediction markets as tools for forecasting election outcomes. He discusses how polling margins of error, the demographics of prediction-market participants and differences between voters and bettors can complicate forecasts. Jacobson's research applies operations research and analytics to societal problems and emphasizes the uncertainty inherent in both approaches.

Researchers analysed 179 incidents to map AI memory negative space

Quantum Zeitgeist

ISE In the Media
November 2, 2026

Quantum Zeitgeist reports on University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northeastern University research examining what information people want conversational AI systems to forget. The researchers analyzed 179 incidents reported by 146 users to identify 15 categories of information users want excluded from AI memory and developed FENCE, a system designed to apply user-defined protections before information enters persistent memory. The research team includes ISE affiliate faculty member Masooda Bashir, whose work focuses on privacy, information technology and human-centered AI.

Yiwen Dong, Jim Rehg and Jeff Shamma receive 2026 Emerging Innovator Awards

Office of Technology Management

ISE News
October 12, 2026

ISE Professors Yiwen Dong, Jim Rehg and Jeff Shamma received a 2026 Emerging Innovator Award as part of Founders Week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The award recognizes faculty members who submitted an invention disclosure to the university’s Office of Technology Management for the first time during the preceding year, marking an initial formal step toward exploring a research discovery’s potential societal or commercial impact.

Aviation security has an over-screening problem

The Hill

ISE In the Media
October 6, 2026

In an opinion piece for The Hill, Sheldon H. Jacobson examines recent changes to airport security screening and argues that the Transportation Security Administration should place greater emphasis on risk-based screening. He discusses footwear screening, remote airport terminals, computed tomography technology and the potential expansion of TSA PreCheck. Jacobson, a professor in Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering whose aviation-security research helped provide the foundation for risk-based passenger screening and TSA PreCheck, advocates balancing passenger convenience with system security.

Back-to-back freeway closures paralyzed Sacramento traffic. Why there’s no easy fix.

The Sacramento Bee

ISE In the Media
September 10, 2026

In an interview with The Sacramento Bee, Richard Sowers, professor of industrial and enterprise systems engineering at the University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering, provides expert insight into how transportation networks respond to major disruptions. Discussing severe traffic congestion caused by back-to-back freeway closures in Sacramento, Sowers explains how infrastructure systems must balance efficiency with resilience, noting that transportation networks should be designed to account for unexpected failures and disruptions. His comments highlight the challenges cities face in creating robust roadway systems that can adapt when critical routes become unavailable.

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Research for a Better World

From smarter systems to sustainable solutions, our research creates real impact. See how ISE is engineering change.

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Faculty

ISE faculty are leaders in advancing human-centered systems, data analytics and optimization. Their groundbreaking research and cross-disciplinary collaborations drive innovation in fields ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to sustainability and artificial intelligence.

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Alumni

From Fortune 500 companies to cutting-edge startups, ISE alumni are shaping how the world works. Their Illinois experience empowers them to lead with insight, optimize with impact and build a better future wherever they go.

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