AUA’s IESM Program: A Quick Glance

3 min read

Education and career paths are often judged by the popularity of their titles and the number of people that pursue them. Unfortunately, in these fast-paced times, people forget that certain paths, although less popular, may actually be more valuable for long-term career viability and prosperity. The Master of Engineering in Industrial Engineering and Systems Management (IESM) program, offered by the American University of Armenia (AUA) Akian College of Science & Engineering (CSE), is one of them. The program is designed to provide a broad-based education in the areas of industrial management, production systems, information technologies, and communication. It focuses on the principles of decision making under uncertainty, effective use of information technologies, as well as modeling and analysis of complex systems.

As application deadlines are approaching, we’d like to spotlight some important facts about the program, in particular IESM alumni success stories and collaborative projects.

The diversity of the fields industrial engineers work becomes obvious even without conducting an exhaustive search. AUA’s IESM alumni are employed as directors, general managers, chief engineers, software developers, project managers, and professors in such companies as Cisco Systems, Inc. ‒ a networking hardware company, American Express ‒ financial services company, Suncor Energy Inc., which deals with the production of synthetic crude from oil sands, International Center for Human Development (ICHD), Barva Innovation Center ‒ research institution, Japonica Intersectoral ‒ economic development research firm, Ford Motor Company ‒ an automotive corporation, St. Jude Medical ‒ a global medical device manufacturer, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and University of Cincinnati among others.

You can read the following IESM alumni success stories in AUA Newsroom: Alumni Success Story: An Interview with Mariam Petrosyan (IESM ‘11), Alumni Story: An Interview with Mane Shahinyan, Gagik Gyulbudaghyan, ME IESM ’94, Receives AUA Distinguished Alumnus 2017 Award, Successful Alumni Story: Astghik Kocharyan, and CSE IESM Alumni Begin Work for Rainbow Dental Laboratory.

In addition, the IESM program has led several R&D projects at AUA. One of them is an ongoing three-year joint project with Harvard Medical School (HMS) whose goal is to develop a better-designed system related to the treatment of leg fractures and its surgical accessories for use in the developing world. Over the past three years, the international team, composed of experienced bio-engineers, mechanical engineers, and surgeons from Harvard, as well as a group of the IESM students under the supervision of the IESM Program Chair, has undertaken the design and revision work for this surgical implant. Fifteen prototypes produced in Yerevan are now in Harvard to undergo cadaveric testing. It is noteworthy that, within the framework of this project, three IESM and one Computer Science (CS) students completed their graduate theses.

Another example of a collaborative project was ICo-op – Industrial Cooperation and Creative Engineering based on Remote Engineering and Virtual Instrumentation. The aim of this project, which involved 9 European universities, was to empower university‒enterprises partnerships by modernizing engineering education based on remote engineering and virtual instrumentation. Within the framework of the project, AUA acquired a remote lab consisting of a desktop milling machine Roland MDX-40A, as well as electromechanical devices and boards for training in controller programming.  

You can learn more about the ICo-op project by reading the following AUA Newsroom articles: AUA Students Receive Certificates For Taking Part in An EU Tempus-Ico-op Training Program, IESM Faculty Member Presents at ICo-op Meeting in Austria, and AUA’s College of Science and Engineering Selected to Lead Innovative Engineering Initiative.

Last but not least, among other successful projects we should mention MARUEEB ‒ a Master’s degree in innovative technologies in energy efficient buildings for Russian and Armenian universities and stakeholders. In the scope of the MARUEEB project, IESM developed a graduate concentration called Sustainable Operations and Resource Management (SORM). In addition, SORM is available as a professional certificate program open to qualified alumni and professionals. Qualified AUA graduate students can acquire the SORM specialization after obtaining 30 ECTS credits (15 American Semester credits) as part of fulfilling their degree requirements. The courses offered in the framework of this project include: “Sustainable, Smart and Resource Efficient Systems I & II,” “Alternative Energy: Technology, Environment, and Economics,” “Data Mining & Predictive Analytics,” “Simulation of Systems and Operations,” and “Innovation” among others. Many of these courses focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings and operations.

Founded in 1991, the American University of Armenia (AUA) is a private, independent university located in Yerevan, Armenia, and affiliated with the University of California. AUA provides a global education in Armenia and the region, offering high-quality graduate and undergraduate studies, encouraging civic engagement, and promoting public service and democratic values.