Dr. Kathryn E. Stecke

Communities Foundation of Texas established the Naveen Jindal School Advisory Council Chair in April 2010. The chair supports the research and scholarly activities of the holder in the Naveen Jindal School of Management.

---

“Investiture is a very important honor. It is very nice thing the University is doing, recognizing the accomplishments of all of the chairs. UT Dallas places a very high value on faculty research, which is important to get closer to Tier One status.”

Dr. Kathryn E. Stecke is an internationally recognized scholar in flexible manufacturing and supply chain issues. She speaks globally about issues related to supply chain management, operations and marketing interface issues, flexible manufacturing systems and seru, which is a Japanese organizational and production system that focuses on electronics product assembly.

Since she was a graduate student, Stecke has been an active member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). She chaired international and national meetings for the institute and served two terms on the organization’s board of directors. In 2009, she was elected an INFORMS fellow.

In 2004, INFORMS selected her research paper, titled “Formulation and Solution of Nonlinear Integer Production Planning Problems for Flexible Manufacturing Systems,” as “one of the 50 most influential papers published in Management Science in the last half century.” Stecke joined UT Dallas in 2002. Two years later, she received the outstanding graduate teaching award in the Naveen Jindal School of Management. Before joining UT Dallas, she taught at the University of Michigan. She has served as an adjunct professor at the University of South Australia since 1999.

She has published numerous papers on various aspects of flexible manufacturing systems planning and scheduling, operations/marketing interface and seru production systems in many journals.

Stecke has also been active in the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS).  She served as program chair, as well as two terms on the POMS board of directors. In 2017, Stecke was elected a POMS Fellow.

She was honored by Purdue University, where she earned master’s degrees in industrial engineering and applied mathematics and a PhD in industrial engineering, with its Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award in 2017 and its Distinguished Women Scholars Award in 2014. In 2015, Stecke received the alumni Education for Service Award from her undergraduate alma mater, Boston State College, now part of the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

In 2013, she was recognized with the INFORMS WORMS Award for the Advancement of Women in Operations Research and the Management Sciences.