About the Department
What is Industrial Engineering?
The Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department at Northwestern is focused on data science for decision-making. Our department conducts internationally recognized research in statistical machine learning, optimization, stochastics, and simulation to support innovations and operations in sectors like health, energy, finance, logistics, and transportation. Our degree programs equip students with skills in data science, analytics, and management science that lead to a wide spectrum of career choices.
Our Mission
Our mission is to be a premier industrial engineering department in research and education. We do this by:
- Conducting state-of-the-art research supported by funding from granting agencies and industry.
- Providing outstanding educational experiences to our undergraduate, graduate, and professional students through modern curricula, excellent teaching, and personalized advising and mentoring.
- Recruiting and retaining the best faculty members.
- Continuously improving our undergraduate and graduate student recruitment and placement.
- Providing excellent service to all of our constituencies.
Degree Programs
Undergraduate Study
We offer a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering. This undergraduate degree program is the largest in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. About 80 students graduate every year, and nearly one third are women.
Graduate Study
We offer a PhD in industrial engineering and management sciences and we offer two professional master’s programs: The Master of Engineering Management and the Master of Science in Machine Learning and Data Science.
Career Paths
Our programs equip students with a broad set of analytical and organizational skills. The flexibility of the programs give students a wide spectrum of career path choices.
Undergraduate
Many of our BS graduates go into management consulting. Some work for investment banks as financial analysts, while others work for manufacturing firms as production and quality control engineers. Others work in the areas of logistics, supply chain management, and distribution networks for retail stores and package delivery companies. Most of our graduates go on to obtain an MBA for which an industrial engineering background is a great asset.
PhD
Our PhD graduates are split about 50:50 between industry and academia. Even though we are one of the smallest among the top 10 industrial engineering departments in terms of the number of faculty members and graduate students, we have among the largest number of PhD graduates as assistant professors in these departments.
Faculty
Our faculty members are recognized internationally for their research accomplishments. Many have won awards. Some have been appointed to editorships of professional journals. Others have authored well-known research monographs and textbooks. In additional to their scholarly activities and accomplishments, all of our faculty members are passionate about teaching. Several have won university-wide teaching and advising awards.
