Benjamin Tran, an industrial engineering student, took home first place in the National Undergraduate Student Technical Paper Competition hosted by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). The competition encourages students to write and present technical papers in a professional journal format. Tran was selected as a finalist after placing first at the IIE Western Regional Conference in San Diego. His advisor for the competition was industrial & manufacturing engineering Professor Kamran Abedini.

Tran says he entered the competition for his professional growth and also to show off all that the industrial & manufacturing engineering department has to offer.

“The department is known for producing quality industrial and manufacturing engineers in the entire nation, so I wanted to pay tribute to my department for being so accommodating as well as enriching to its students,” Tran says.

The competition drew students from Rutgers State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“For me to come ahead of these schools definitely shows that Cal Poly Pomona has a strong engineering curriculum, not only for industrial & manufacturing engineering but also for other engineering disciplines as well,” Tran says.