Karwan appointed dean of School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
News Services Editor

The announcement was made by President William R. Greiner, on the recommendation of Provost Thomas Headrick.

"Mark's appointment as dean is a great choice," said Greiner. "He has done great things in Engineering and Applied Sciences during his year as interim dean. His two decades at UB have served him well in working with colleagues here, and he has also pulled together some outstanding external relations programs for the school. Mark has a lot of energy, a lot of fresh ideas, and a lot of savvy in working with the community at large. He's an excellent leader, ambassador, and advocate for SEAS.

"We expect many more great things during Mark's deanship, and we're proud to have him in that role."

Karwan began teaching at UB as an assistant professor in 1976. Since 1995, he has served as interim dean of SEAS. He was associate dean for research and graduate education from 1993 to 1994 and from 1987 to 1992, he was chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering.

A recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1989, he was named the Tau Beta Pi "Professor of the Year" at UB in 1984 and again in 1986.

Karwan conducts research in mathematical programming, multiple criteria decision making and various applications of operations research, including vehicle routing and scheduling and production planning.

He also is applying operations research principles to other scheduling processes, including the routing of hazardous wastes.

As interim dean, Karwan has been instrumental in strengthening the school's base of support, particularly among local and national businesses.

In 1995, he led the formation of the school's first Dean's Advisory Council, which provides support and advice to the engineering school on industrial relations, education, student groups, new programs and job placement for graduates. Chief executives at major corporations and agencies throughout the U.S., some of whom have no prior connection with UB, are among its members.

Karwan is the director of the local arm of the statewide Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence (SPIR), designed to help local companies improve their competitiveness and productivity. SPIR is based in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The idea behind the program, which provides grants to local companies, is to help them develop new ideas and capabilities by providing an additional research-and-development arm and technical expertise.

Karwan has served as a consultant with Praxair, Inc. (the former Union Carbide Industrial Gases) since 1987. He has been funded by Praxair to conduct research on logistics, production planning, model-based process control and other projects.

He has instituted a cooperative agreement with the company where research and development personnel and UB engineering professors work together on solving engineering problems. Similar programs are in the works with other companies.

The Office of Naval Research and the City of Buffalo also have supported Karwan's research and he has been a consultant to Health Care Plan, Inc. and Union Carbide Corp.

Co-author of more than 70 publications, he is associate editor of Naval Research Logistics and serves on the editorial advisory board of Computers & Operations Research.

A Buffalo resident, Karwan earned a doctorate in operations research from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in engineering science and a master's degree in operations research from The Johns Hopkins University.