Subhash Sarin of Blacksburg has been appointed the Paul T. Norton Professor of Virginia Tech's Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE). The endowed professorship was established in 1988 in honor of Paul Norton, who in 1920 became the founding department head of ISE's forerunner, the department of commercial engineering.

Sarin, who joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1983, is the founding director of ISE's Electronics Manufacturing Research Laboratory. His expertise is focused in the areas of operations research and the design and scheduling of manufacturing systems. He has been principal investigator on 40 funded projects at the university.

Sarin's work also was critical in obtaining $4.3 million in funding from the Commonwealth Technology Research Fund to establish Virginia Tech's Center for High Performance Manufacturing, for which he serves as an associate director.

An outstanding educator, Sarin received the College of Engineering Sporn Award for excellence in undergraduate instruction in 1997 and the Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999.

He also has received state and national honors as an educator. In 1998 he was selected by the Virginia Engineering Award Committee to receive the Pletta Award as the Commonwealth's engineering educator of the year. In 2000, he received the Albert Holzman Distinguished Educator Award, the top national educational honor of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE).

Sarin's professional contributions to the field of industrial engineering were recognized by his election as a Fellow of the IIE.

Before coming to Virginia Tech, Sarin was on the faculty of Ohio State University. He studied as an undergraduate at the University of Delhi in India, and received his M.S. from Kansas State University and Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.

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