Welcome April Gu ( 2018 )
Professor April Gu has joined the faculty of Cornell’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). Gu’s major research interest is understanding and applying biological agents and their...
Meet Robin Ploss, CEE M.Eng. Class of '93
Career position and path:
I am currently the Supply Chain Planning Manager for Corning’s Emerging Innovations Group, responsible for tactical and strategic planning for a portfolio of ~25 new products/projects that are coming out of our research park in Painted Post, New York. We do a lot of work with internal (Corning-owned) manufacturing entities, as well as external contract manufacturers around the world, depending on the locations of suppliers and customers, and other factors in our supply chain network design. Other key highlights in my career include being the Division Supply Chain Manager for Corning Glass Technologies when we introduced Gorilla™ glass for handheld IT devices in 2008, Supply Chain Strategy Manager for Corning Display Technologies during the 2004 – 2007 LCD television boom, and working in a variety of industrial engineering roles in our corporate engineering group from 1998 – 2004.
Educational Background:
Prior to returning to graduate school in 1992, I was working as a program planner for a space systems manufacturing company in Ithaca. My undergraduate degree in Physical Science (Geology) proved limiting from a career advancement perspective, and my boss at the time recommended I look into an engineering degree. I contacted Cornell, and was referred to the Civil Engineering school. At the time, the MEng manufacturing option was in its early stages, and was attractive to me, since my background was in project management and manufacturing. I ended up taking several ORIE classes as part of the manufacturing option track, including doing a class project in dispatch rule optimization for an MRP (Material & Resource Planning) system at a company in Cortland, NY. That formalized my entry into supply chain management, with a strong technical background in industrial engineering.
Advice to Students:
My advice to current undergraduates would be to be open to new experiences. Focus on your technical studies, but participate in any internship or project activities that give you exposure to industrial application of what you’re learning, and look for ways to uniquely bring your knowledge, training and expertise to bear on problems that interest you.
Advice on Entering the Workforce:
For graduating students entering the workforce, my advice would be to recognize that your technical background is only part of what you bring to the table – how you relate to other people in the organization you will be potentially joining, and how successful you will be, ultimately depends more on your ability to influence how other people think about a solution than on the technical merits of the solution itself. A manager who interviews or hires you assumes you know how to do the job technically, based on your credentials. To be truly successful, that manager will be looking for how you are able to build consensus through your interpersonal interactions with the other people in his or her organization.
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Christina Chu-Garcia
Christina Chu-Garcia is listed as one of the 2018 rising stars in Civil Structural Engineering. She is also a CEE alumna, earning her Master’s of Engineering in Structural Engineering and her Bachelor...
Meet Robin Ploss, CEE M.Eng. Class of '93
Career position and path: I am currently the Supply Chain Planning Manager for Corning’s Emerging Innovations Group, responsible for tactical and strategic planning for a portfolio of ~25 new products...
Welcome Qi Li ( 2018 )
Qi Li has joined the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell as an assistant professor. Li is interested in fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and hydrologic processes in the built...
Chalermpat Pariya-Ekkasut
Chalermpat Pariya-Ekkasut loved to build sandcastles when he was a kid. Growing up in Ratchaburi, Thailand, (two hours from Bangkok), Pariya-Ekkasut was never far from the ocean. As a Ph.D. student...
- Hometown: Thailand
- Civil and Environmental Engineering
What goes on in there? A visit to Cornell’s Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility
Often when Hollywood directors want to convey the fact that something very scientific is happening, they will dress the actors in white suits that cover them head to toe—including booties, gloves, and...
Meet the Millers, a Cornell Engineering father-daughter team
If you are an engineering major at Cornell, there will be times that are hard. Maybe for you it’s the Statics and Mechanics of Solids class. Or it could be Introductory Quantum Mechanics. Maybe it’s...
Victoria Hu
What drew you to enroll in Cornell's Engineering Management program? I was attracted to the Engineering Management program because it is a very unique program that prepares students to engineer better...
- Hometown: Washington Township, NJ
- Engineering Management
Welcome Matthew Reid ( 2016 )
Matthew Reid had an inkling that he might be well-suited to graduate school when he made it through a two-year stint in the United States Peace Corps. “I found I was adaptable when I spent two years...
Welcome Samitha Samaranayake ( 2016 )
Samitha Samaranayake believes that we’re at the dawn of a revolution in urban transportation systems. “This is a great time to study urban transportation problems and solutions,” says Samaranayake....