1. T
Kate Gleaon College of Engineering
Rochester Institute of Technology
77 Lomb Memorial Dr.
Rochester, NY 14623 Announcing
the Appointment
of New Faculty
& Endowed Chairs
for
Academic Year
2014-2015
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
Rochester, NY
Permit No. 626
THE KATE GLEASON
COLLEGE OF
Engineering
THE KATE GLEASON
COLLEGE OF
Engineering

2. Katie McConky
Assistant Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering
Dr. Katie McConky received her B.S. and M.S. in Industrial
Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and
her Ph.D. in Operations Research from the State University
of New York at Buffalo. Prior to joining the RIT faculty, she worked
as a research scientist for CUBRC Inc. for seven years.
While at CUBRC she gained a broad range of experiences as a
research scientist working on military situation awareness
applications, intelligence community data mining projects, and
most recently as the lead data scientist for an energy data
analytics start-up company named TROVE. Dr. McConky is using
the experience gained from working with six different utilities on
load forecasting algorithms, demand response optimization, energy
efficiency program optimization, and energy theft detection to develop a research program focused
on sustainability in the energy space. Of particular interest is the use of smart meter data to develop
optimal residential and industrial demand side management strategies.
Rachel Silvestrini
Kate Gleason Associate Professor, Industrial &
Systems Engineering; Quality & Applied Statistics
Dr. Rachel Silvestrini received her B.S. in Industrial Engineering
from Northwestern University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in
Industrial Engineering from Arizona State University.
Dr. Silvestrini’s research interests include design of experiments,
response surface methods, mathematical modeling, data
analysis, data science, and simulation methodology. Her
research application interests include problems in the areas of
test and evaluation, historical medical patient record analysis,
semiconductor manufacturing, and logistics. She has
consistently received external funding for her research projects,
maintained a solid publication record, advised thesis students,
and given invited talks on her research. To date she has more than 25 technical papers published
or accepted for publication in peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and book
chapters.
Jing Zhang, Kate Gleason Assistant Professor
Electrical & Microelectronic Engineering
Dr. Jing Zhang received her B.S. in electronic science and
technology from the Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (Wuhan, China), and her Ph.D. in Electrical and
Computer Engineering at Lehigh University. While at Lehigh,
Dr. Zhang received the Dean’s Scholarship (2009), the
Sherman-Fairchild Fellowship for Solid State Studies twice
(2011-2013), and the prestigious SPIE Scholarship in Optics
and Photonics (2012).
Dr. Zhang’s research encompasses various aspects of
computational, material growth, and device fabrication of
III-Nitride semiconductors for light emitters and
thermoelectric devices. Her work includes the pursuit of novel
materials for large thermoelectric figures of merit, semiconductor Ultraviolet Light Emitting
Diodes and lasers, as well as III-Nitride solid state lighting devices. Dr. Zhang has published
more than 22 refereed journal papers and 30 conference publications, including invited talks.