IISE ANNUAL 2026: Discovering What Comes Next
The big picture: Four days. Hundreds of sessions. The global ISE community converging on Arlington, Texas — leaving with the ideas, tools, and connections that will shape the field for years to come.
Why it matters: In a profession defined by solving complex problems, IISE Annual is where the solutions take shape — and 2026 delivered on every front.
What happened in Arlington:
- Breakthrough technical sessions across every ISE discipline
- Expo floor innovations showcasing the tools redefining the profession
- Keynote insights from some of the sharpest minds in engineering and leadership
- Career-defining connections made across industry, academia, and government
Stay tuned: The experience doesn't end here. We're compiling photo albums, keynote recaps, and community takeaways — watch this space for retrospective content coming soon.
Videos: Keynotes and Honorees
Watch these presentations and acceptance speeches recorded during the 2026 conference:
Keynote Presentations
Honors & Awards Recipients
Photo Albums
Look back at moments captured during the conference as well as a collection of award recipients. Open any album and right-click on an image to download a copy.
Conference Candids
Honors & Awards
2026 Competition Winners
Congratulations to all winners and finalists of these 2026 IISE competitions:
Innovation Cup
- Gold Award: Smurfit Westrock Co., Rishabh Bhandawat, Charles Corbett, Femi Famuyiwa, and Andre Perez, “Real-Time Energy Optimization in Pulp & Paper: Leveraging Advanced Analytics for Multi-Million Dollar Savings”
- Silver Award: Essilor Luxottica, Naveen Chandra Kukkala, “Slotting Optimization Framework with Cross-Site Scaling”
- Bronze Award: Mayo Clinic, Aniket Ramekar, Gabe Nowicki, Brendan Mosier, Thomas Boose, Josh Humpal, Ian Homich, Jacob Dison, L.J. Gearhart and Aaron Clark, “Transforming Healthcare Operations Through Robotics Integration”
Capstone Senior Design
- First place: Georgia Tech, Nivi Dileep, Charles Hill, Davis McLanahan, Myiesha Rahman, Mahathi Siripurapu, Martin Svobodkov, Jason Warner and Peter Zagrobelny, “Novelis Aluminum Production Scheduling Optimization”
- Second place: Virginia Tech, Amanda Mizerak, Shirish Misro, Grace Piscitelli and Jenna Cameron, “Innova Plastics Plant Consolidation”
- Third place: Georgia Tech, Matias Torres, Sylvia Shyrel Bentata Aronov, Lauryn Carter, Quincy Howard, Nevin Jiang, Octavio Plate Zelaschi, Catalina Segura Vargas, Matias Torres and Rasin Vasaya, “Claims Concierge Inc. Process Improvement”
- Fourth place: Purdue University, Abigail Titus, Charles Janu and Grace Moore, “Shutterfly: Improving Customer Promise Precision Process”
Operational Excellence Best Practices
- First place: Flextronics Electronics Technology (Suzhou) Co., Ltd, Simon Guan and Rita Jiang, “AI‑Driven E2E Quality & Operations Cost for HMLV Products"
- Second place: Flextronics Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd., Abrar Ahmed Hafiz, “GBS Engineering and Quality - Time for Transformations”
- Third place: Daimler Truck North America, Judson Estes, “Overmold Sensor Diagnostic Process”
Undergraduate Student Technical Paper
- First place: Virginia Tech, Irma Adams and Austin Canuel, “Sustainable Timber Supply Chain Optimization”
- Second place: Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey Campus Queretaro Santiago de Queretaro, Sylvana Audirac Farfán, Oscar Iván Ortiz Martínez, Pedro Luis Ortiz Martínez, Luis Jesús Hernández Alor and Dulce María Ordaz Girón, “From Manual Recording to Industry 4.0: A Comparative Analysis of Data Quality”
- Third place: University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Tushar Jain, “Developing an AI-Driven Guitar Tutor for Real-Time Skill Feedback”
IISE Rockwell Automation Student Simulation
- First place: ConsultETS, École de Technologie Supérieure, Alec Garon, Luis Joya and Gabriel Rochefort
- Second place: UB Optiflow, University at Buffalo, Mina Samiei Nasab and Seyed Ahmad Torabzadeh
- Third place: Team Parsy, Baskent University, Buğra Erdal, Ege Duman and Zehra Beyza Erdekli
Next Stop ...
We hope to see you in Louisville, Kentucky, for IISE Annual 2027. More details to come.