Published: October 18, 2024
We’re continuing our countdown to the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, October 20-23, when more than 6,000 INFORMS members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts will share the ways O.R. and analytics are fueling Smarter Decisions for a Better World.
Joining me to give a sneak peek of this year’s meeting is Harriet Nembhard, professor and president of Harvey Mudd College.
Harriet is Harvey Mudd College’s sixth president, and a nationally recognized leader in the field of industrial and operations engineering, an expert in health systems, a voice on the national level for transforming undergraduate STEM education, and a champion for Harvey Mudd’s mission. She is leading the development of an ambitious strategic plan to fortify Harvey Mudd’s standing as a distinctive liberal arts college for science, engineering, and mathematics.
Harriet will be presenting the plenary session – Preparing Interdisciplinary Leaders: Reimagine Your Department As A Place For Educating Future Operations Research Leaders Who Can Tackle Complex And Nuanced Problems – at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
We’ve been working here at Harvey Mudd over my first year on building out our strategic plan around the vision of STEM for the world, and for me that has a couple of meanings. At one level it’s what we are doing through our science, technology, engineering and math to be of service to the world in these grand challenges. But also that we bring the world to Harvey Mudd in some ways. And we have people – no matter where you are from in the world – you now have another home at Harvey Mudd and to me it resonates in that way. When we’re having smarter decisions for a better world as the INFORMS tagline, I see very much an alignment in both of those ways. Are we using our gifts, our talents, our technologies for a better world, and how are we through INFORMS bringing people from around the world into that decision-making process. I think it’s just a lovely, lovely alignment.
Interviewed this episode:
Harriet Nembhard
Harvey Mudd College
Harriet B. Nembhard has served as Harvey Mudd College’s sixth president and professor of the college since July 1, 2023. She is nationally recognized leader in the field of industrial and operations engineering, an expert in health systems, a voice on the national level for transforming undergraduate STEM education, and a champion for Harvey Mudd’s mission. President Nembhard is leading the development of an ambitious strategic plan to fortify Harvey Mudd’s standing as a distinctive liberal arts college for science, engineering, and mathematics.
Prior to her appointment at Harvey Mudd, Nembhard was dean of engineering at the University of Iowa and had previously held leadership positions at Oregon State and Penn State. She has been the principal investigator on several research projects supported by the National Science Foundation to improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery to patients. Nembhard is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Quality, Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and currently serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education.
Nembhard earned a BA from Claremont McKenna College, BS from Arizona State University, and an MS and PhD from the University of Michigan.
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2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Seattle, Oct 20-23
#INFORMS2024 Plenary Speaker Harriet Nembhard, Harvey Mudd College