Bian joins ISE faculty

STARKVILLE, Miss. – After completing his first semester in the Bagley College of Engineering, an assistant professor in the industrial and systems engineering department has big plans for his first semester of teaching.

Linkan Bian joined the Mississippi State University family in August 2013. He spent his first semester focusing on his research with process monitoring and quality improvement in 3-D printing.

“3-D printing has promising applications ranging from aerospace to dentistry,” Bian said. “However, a key challenge related to 3-D printing is the low repeatability and poor part quality. I’m working with my collaborators on monitoring the fabrication process and improving product quality using the methods of data mining.”

This semester will be Bian’s first semester to teach as a faculty member, but he is no stranger to facing a classroom of students. While earning a doctoral and master’s degrees, he taught undergraduate courses similar to what he will be teaching this semester at MSU—Engineering Statistics 1. He said he hopes to include more than just the basic material of the class by giving the students a sense of engineering.

“I hope my students don’t just memorize equations from the textbook,” Bian said. “What is much more important is to understand how this can be useful in the applications of engineering, and communicate the engineering knowledge clearly to people without an engineering background.”

Bian choose to come to at Mississippi State because of the work environment and career opportunities the university offers its faculty members.

“The university and the department have very good working conditions, especially for collaborations. Faculty who share research interests are encouraged to work as a team,” Bian said. “My colleagues are extremely supportive and helpful. This is really healthy for the junior faculty to develop their career paths.”

Bian earned a doctorate in industrial and systems engineering in 2013 from Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a master’s degree in statistics and mathematics from Michigan State University and a bachelor’s in applied mathematics from Beijing University.

For more information on Bian or the Bagley College of Engineering visit www.bagley.msstate.edu.