Center for Undergraduate Research in Viterbi Engineering (CURVE) Fellowship

Project Title: Supply Chain Resilience

Faculty / PI: Randolph Hall

Lab Name: CREATE

Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering

Research Website: create.usc.edu

# of Freshmen Positions: 1

# of Continuing Student Positions: 1

Project Description: The student (or students) will participate in a program to understand global supply chain resilience. An aim will be to develop platform technology that builds cooperation and trust among diverse and competing entities, offering benefits of shared information while appropriately respecting confidentiality and proprietary interests. We will study resilient network optimization and system disruption, balancing economic advantages of industry concentration with the flexibility of diversification, reconfiguration and localization and the potential for skill development within the U.S. An aim will be to develop socio-technical systems that integrate diverse global supply chains (food, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, ecommerce and energy) toward two goals: (1) robust operation relative to shocks caused by human behavior, international conflict and natural disaster; and (2) ethical and trusted sourcing, accounting for environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.

Student Responsibilities: Student will assist in data collection, data analysis and proposal development, to establish an engineering research center focused on global supply chain resilience.

Interview Required? Yes

Skills and Competencies (Preferred)

• Collection, integration and visualization of large data sets from public sources
• Graphics development for presentation of information, charts and diagrams.

Additional Details: Effort is interdisciplinary, including industrial/systems engineering, electrical engineering and computer science.

Project Title: Covid-19 Data Analytics and Optimization

Faculty / PI: Randolph Hall

Lab Name: covid19datasource

Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering

Research Website: https://covid19datasource.usc.edu/

# of Freshmen Positions: 1

# of Continuing Student Positions: 2

Project Description: The project is developing data analytic models to understand disease transmission, disease consequences and public health interventions. Undergraduate students have contributed to journal publications related to modeling disease transmission in the United States, and use of differential equation based models that represent disease dynamics. The focus of the work will be on understanding fairness and consequences of different approaches for allocating vaccines by population sub-group and location, aiming to reduce transmission of disease and severe cases of disease.

Student Responsibilities: Data integration, analysis, and optimization related to distribution of vaccines and other resources to slow the spread of disease and associated health consequences.

Interview Required? Yes

Skills and Competencies (Preferred)

• Python programming
• Statistical analysis of data sets
• Understanding of health systems (desirable)
• Differential equations (desirable)

Additional Details: Undergraduates will work with both a PhD student and the professor leading the research program.

Project Title: Improving Quality of Care for Patients Receiving Care through Digital Health

Faculty / PI: Yalda Khashe

Lab Name: HFE Lab

Department: ISE

# of Freshmen Positions: 1

# of Continuing Student Positions: 3

Information Session: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Information Session Recording

Project Description: Patient satisfaction has always been a growing concern of healthcare providers. However, the more significant aspect of digital health is the quality of care that the patient receives virtually and the impact of technology on patient safety, as distance could hamper the communication between the patient and healthcare provider. The design of the digital health system, and specifically the interface that connects the patient with the healthcare provider plays a crucial role in the quality and reliability of the care that patient receives. Digital health as a technology-mediated system, can be explored through the lens of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to better understand how users, in this case patients and health care providers, interact with the technology.

Student Responsibilities: Conducting independent research

Attending weekly research meetings and presenting their work/progress

Presenting their work at local/national conferences and the CURVE symposium

Interview Required? No

Skills and Competencies (Preferred)

Additional Details:

Project Title: University Innovation

Faculty / PI: Randolph Hall

Lab Name: University Innovation

Department: Industrial and Systems Engineering

Research Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randolph-hall-usc/

# of Freshmen Positions: 1

# of Continuing Student Positions: 1

Project Description: As part of a broad study of innovation, the project will analyze the relationship of university policies to innovation culture at highly ranked universities, along with relationships to peer assessment. The study will draw from public documents as well as publicly reported data from universities in which they self-identify peer institutions. Network analysis will be used to identify commonalities and differences among universities within clusters.

Student Responsibilities: Data collection, integration and assessment through analytical tools that support network analysis and text analysis.

Interview Required? Yes

Skills and Competencies (Preferred)

• Ability to collect and integrate large data sets for analysis.
• Experience using Google docs for collaboration and sharing.

Additional Details: Work is related to a recently completed book on university innovation.