Max Shen Named To Succeed Ken Goldberg As Chair Of IEOR
Professor Zuo-Jun “Max” Shen has just been named to be the next chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research (IEOR) at UC Berkeley. Professor Shen will take over for Professor Ken Goldberg who will complete his term as chair at the end of 2018.
Shen obtained his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences from Northwestern University. He joined the department in July 2004. Before that he taught at the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at the University of Florida. His primary research interests are in the general area of integrated supply chain design and management, and practical mechanism design. Shen holds a joint appointment in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE) at UC Berkeley and is also the co-director of Environmental Science & New Energy Center at the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute.
Max will succeed Professor Ken Goldberg who played a key role in developing the department by hiring three faculty and three staff members, establishing joint appointments for EECS professors Pieter Abbeel and Mike Jordan, and advocating for faculty tenure and promotion cases. Ken coordinated the ABET review and accreditation, and advocated for diversity enhancement among our faculty, lecturers, grads, and undergrads (and in the new Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology dual degree program with the Haas School of Business). Ken created the Machine Learning and Data Science (MLDS) Faculty Committee, the PhD Fellowship Selection Committee, and the IEOR Corporate Affiliates Program.
Further, Ken was instrumental in working with generous alumni and advisory board members, in particular Nancy Blachman and Tim Chen, to lead the renovation of two IEOR facilities to create our new PhD Student Research Lab and the new state-of-the-art auditorium classroom on the 1st floor of Etcheverry which will open in early 2019. Ken also developed the IEOR history and contributed in countless other ways. He will take a sabbatical this spring to spend time with his family and his startup company that is developing software for e-commerce order fulfillment robots.
Shen will serve as the 16th chair of IEOR following Goldberg (2017-2018), Kaminsky (2011-2016), Righter (2008-2010), Adler (2005-2007), and Schruben (2001-2004).
