- ISE was honored at the UF Graduate School Awards Ceremony.
- ISE is the second Ph.D. program to receive this excellence award.
- This award recognizes the program’s mentoring, academic training and environment.
The Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, known as ISE, recently received the 2025-2026 Excellence in Doctoral Education award from the University of Florida Graduate School. This award honors doctoral programs that demonstrate exceptional commitment to high-quality mentoring, academic training and a supportive scholarly environment.
This is only the second Excellence in Doctoral Education distinction awarded, as the College of Pharmacy won the inaugural award last year.
“The UF ISE Ph.D. program distinguishes itself through an intentionally engineered, student-centered model of doctoral education,” said Jorge A. Sefair, Ph.D., associate ISE professor and associate chair for Graduate Studies.
At the UF Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, the ISE graduate program consists of 192 graduate students (40 Ph.D. students) and is currently ranked the 11th best public graduate industrial engineering program by U.S. News & World Report. ISE has consistently ranked among the top programs in the country and continues to demonstrate its commitment toward elevating the student experience at UF. The ISE program has also consistently been among the highest-ranked graduate programs within the college.
“This award reflects the collective commitment of our faculty, leadership and staff to providing outstanding Ph.D. student experience,” said Sefair. “Special recognition goes to the current and former staff members of the ISE Graduate Office — Jordan Sharpshair, Chloe Piloto, Tamara Caballero and Devashish Sharma — for their dedication to supporting our graduate students and advancing the success of our programs.”
UF Graduate School Associate Provost and Dean Nicole L.P. Stedman, Ph.D., was thrilled to share the news with the department.
“The Graduate School was deeply impressed by your program’s strong culture of faculty engagement, effective structures for student success and outstanding research accomplishments among its doctoral candidates,” Stedman noted in a letter to ISE.
In addition to the recognition, ISE received a monetary award, which will help ISE graduate students with conference travel, training and other professional development.
“For prospective students, this award serves as an independent validation of the quality of the Ph.D. student experience in ISE at the University of Florida and is certainly a factor worth considering when choosing a doctoral program,” said Sefair.