Raghu Pasupathy, professor of industrial and systems engineering at Virginia Tech, has received the 2010 IBM Faculty Award in recognition of his ongoing work on the methodology of simulation optimization and random vector generation. The award comes with a cash prize of $10,000.
The IBM Faculty Award Program is a worldwide competition intended to foster collaboration between researchers at leading universities and those in IBM research, development, and service organizations. Winners of the award are selected for their reputation, important contributions, and unusual promise. The award also promotes courseware and curriculum innovation to stimulate growth in disciplines and geographies that are strategic to IBM, according to the company.
Pasupathy is a 2005 graduate of Purdue University, receiving his Ph.D. in the field of operations research. His research focuses on the methodological aspects of Monte Carlo simulation with a special emphasis on simulation-optimization, root finding, and random variate generation. His work finds application in a wide variety of application domains including telecommunication systems, financial engineering, biology, logistics, and defense.
Pasupathy is the 2008 winner of the prestigious JFIG paper competition sponsored by INFORMS. He is also the recipient of four teaching awards at Purdue University and Virginia Tech. The Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation fund much of Pasupathy’s ongoing research.