March 18, 2009

Roberts named Allison Distinguished Professor

Dr. Roberts (Photo: Submitted)

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Dr. Stephen D. Roberts of the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University has been selected as the A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The endowed professorship was established by Fitts to honor Allison, Fitts' uncle who passed away last year.   Fitts credits Allison, a 1941 graduate of the College of Textiles at NC State, with inspiring him to pursue a degree in industrial engineering. Fitts graduated from NC State in 1961 and went on to become chairman and CEO of the global packaging company Dopaco.

“I am delighted that Dr. Roberts has been selected as the initial recipient of this professorship honoring my uncle,” Fitts said. “His exemplary record of leadership and research makes him an invaluable asset to NC State.”

Roberts, who directs NC State's Laboratory for Healthcare Systems Engineering, has been a professor of industrial engineering at NC State since 1990 and served as department head from 1990 to 1999. He was previously a professor at the University of Florida and held a joint professorship at Purdue University and Indiana University. His research focuses on discrete-event simulation and medical decision modeling, and he is currently examining the probabilistic cost-effectiveness of screening methods for colorectal cancer.

Roberts is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Society for Computer Simulation and the Institute for Management Sciences. He earned his doctoral degree at Purdue in 1968.

“Congratulations to Dr. Steve Roberts, one of our outstanding faculty members, for earning this distinguished professorship,” said Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering. “This is a wonderful way for an alumnus to honor a family member, and we continue to be grateful for Ed Fitts' generous support of the College.”

Fitts spent 27 years as chairman and CEO of Dopaco, growing it from a company of 115 employees to a company of 1,500 employees spread across nine plants with sales of more than $400 million annually. His $10 million gift in 2005 to endow the industrial and systems engineering department remains the largest gift ever received by the College of Engineering from an individual donor and the largest endowed gift to academics in NC State University's history. The department was renamed in his honor for his dedication to the College.

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