Undergraduate Awards
The Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech recognizes outstanding undergraduate students each year through a series of departmental awards. These awards honor excellence in academics, leadership, service, and overall contributions to the ISE community.
Outstanding Academic Achievement Award
This award recognizes graduating seniors who have demonstrated exceptional academic performance in the Industrial and Systems Engineering curriculum. Selection is based on overall GPA, performance in ISE coursework, rigor of the course of study, and evidence of intellectual curiosity and initiative.
Robert D. Dryden Outstanding Senior Award
This award is named in honor of Robert D. Dryden, who was Department Head of ISE for many years and left a lasting mark on our curriculum and department reputation. This award recognizes a graduating senior who exemplifies overall excellence in the ISE program. Selection is based on academic performance, involvement in departmental and professional activities, and contributions to the ISE community and beyond. This award honors a student who has distinguished themselves through exceptional achievement in one or more of these areas.
Robert D. Dryden Outstanding Senior Award
Bob Dryden earned his B.S. and M.S. from Oklahoma State University (1967, 1968) and his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University (1973), all in industrial engineering and management. He served as head of Virginia Tech’s ISE department during the 1990s before leaving to become dean of engineering at Portland State University, a position he held for 13 years. Under his leadership Portland State’s School of Engineering was renamed the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, and he took on additional duties as vice chancellor for engineering for the Oregon University System. Portland State named the Dryden Drop Tower—an aerospace research facility in the engineering building’s atrium—after him. Outside his university roles, Dryden served as executive director of Alpha Pi Mu, the industrial engineering honor society, for roughly 30 years. He died on July 7, 2013, at age 71, at his home in Blacksburg. His daughter Julie also lived in Blacksburg at the time of his passing.
Outstanding Service Award
This award recognizes graduating seniors who have demonstrated exceptional service to the ISE department, university, or broader community. Selection is based on sustained involvement in service activities, leadership in student organizations or outreach, and contributions that positively impact others.
Don Taylor Senior Leader Award
This award was initiated by the ISE Advisory Board in 2010 and named in honor of Don Taylor because of his lifelong interest in leadership—studying it, demonstrating it, and cultivating it in others. The awardee is selected by the Leadership and Recognition Committee of the ISE Advisory Board and recognizes a graduating senior who has demonstrated outstanding leadership within the ISE community and beyond. Selection is based on leadership roles in student organizations, teams, or initiatives, ability to motivate and support others, and lasting impact on the department or student body.
Don Taylor Senior Leader Award
Don Taylor holds the Charles O. Gordon Professorship in ISE at Virginia Tech and currently serves as Executive Vice Provost. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in industrial engineering from UT Arlington (1983, 1985) and his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and operations research from UMass (1990). Before Virginia Tech he held the Duthie Endowed Chair in Engineering Logistics at the University of Louisville and was the founding director of their Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution. Earlier in his career he founded his own consulting firm, directed the University of Arkansas’s Logistics Institute, and worked for Texas Instruments and Digital Equipment Corp.
Taylor has been at Virginia Tech since 2004. As ISE department head from 2004 to 2016, he led the department to two University Exemplary Department Awards—the first in 2007 for its approach to student advising, and again in 2012 for linking assessment with instruction to improve student learning. Since stepping down as head, he has taken on a series of university-wide leadership roles: interim dean of the College of Engineering (2016–17), vice provost for learning systems innovation and effectiveness, interim vice president for research and innovation (2019–20), and now executive vice provost. His research focuses on simulation and optimization of complex systems and freight logistics, with more than 75 journal articles and book chapters, along with 10 edited books, to his name.
In 2023 he received the Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Industrial Engineering Award—the highest honor given by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). He’s a Fellow and president emeritus of IISE, chairs the board of IISE Solutions Inc., and is a Fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science.