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Ivan E. Esparragoza is an Associate Professor of Engineering at Penn State. His interests are in engineering design education, innovative design, global design, and global engineering education. He has introduced multinational design projects in a freshman introductory engineering design course in collaboration with institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean as part of his effort to contribute to the formation of world class engineers for the Americas. He is actively involved in the International Division of the American Society for Engineering Education and in the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institution (LACCEI) as Vice-President for Meetings and in the International Federation of Engineering education Societies (IFEES) as VP for the Americas and First VP.

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Sadan Kulturel‐Konak is a Professor of Management Information Systems at Penn State Berks where she is also the Coordinator of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ENTI) Minor and the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED). She received her degrees in Industrial Engineering; B.S. from Gazi University, Turkey, M.S. from the Middle East Technical University, Turkey and from the University of Pittsburgh, and Ph.D. from Auburn University. Her research interests are in modeling and optimization of complex systems and robustness under uncertainty with applications to facility layout, reliability, and scheduling. She has published her research in numerous journals including IIE Transactions, OR Letters, INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS Transactions on Education, International Journal of Production Research, European Journal of Operational Research, and Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing Computers. She is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) and American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). She is currently the chair of ASEE Mid Atlantic Section. She has been a principal investigator in sponsored projects from National Science Foundation (NSF) and Venture Well. sadan@psu.edu.

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Abdullah Konak is a Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University Berks. Dr. Konak received his degrees in Industrial Engineering, B.S. from Yildiz Technical University, Turkey, M.S. from Bradley University, and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to his current position, he taught at Auburn University. Dr. Konak also held visiting positions at Lehigh University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Konak’s current research interest is in the application of Operations Research techniques to complex problems, including such topics as network design, network reliability, facilities design, green logistics, and data mining. Dr. Konak has published papers in leading journals such as Operations Research Letters, Informs Journal on Computing, Europan Journal of Operations Research, Computers and Operations Research, IIE Transactions, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, International Journal of Production Research, and Production Economics. He has been a principal investigator in sponsored projects from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, the US Department of Labor, and Venture Well.

Dr. Konak currently teaches courses on Database Management Systems, Cybersecurity, Agent Based Modelling, and Entrepreneurship. He is a member of IISE, INFORMS, and IEEE.

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Gül E. Kremer received her PhD from the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering of Missouri University of Science & Technology. Her research interests include multi-criteria decision analysis methods applied to improvement of products and systems. She is a senior member of IIE, a fellow of ASME, a former Fulbright scholar and NRC Faculty Fellow. Her recent research focus includes sustainable product design and enhancing creativity in engineering design settings.

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