The industrial and systems engineering program at USC Viterbi School of Engineering has been recognized with a top 10 ranking for 2025 by the U.S. News and World Report.
USC’s capacity in industrial and systems engineering research, innovation, and learning has expanded significantly over the past two decades with the support of an unprecedented $25 million cumulative gift from alumnus and Trustee Daniel J. Epstein. Epstein is the founder of the ConAm Group and has led a distinguished career as a real estate entrepreneur. In 2002, he made history with his naming gift to establish the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering — the first-named department at USC and the largest naming gift for any ISE department in the United States at the time. The endowment enabled the department’s rapid growth, with student enrolment increasing fivefold over twenty years.
Dean’s Professor and Epstein Department Chair Maged Dessouky welcomed the latest U.S. News and World Report ranking, placing USC 10th among the country’s leading industrial and systems engineering programs.
“I’m honored to serve as department chair during a period of transformative growth for industrial and systems engineering at USC,” Dessouky said. “When I joined the department in 1993, it had only three faculty members with a total enrollment between the undergraduate and graduate programs of around 80 to 100 students. Today, we have 19 faculty members and 1060 students at much lower acceptance rates.”
Maged Dessouky, Dean’s Professor and chair of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
“Thanks to Dan Epstein’s ongoing generosity, we have built significant research and teaching capacity within the department. His gifts will ensure this great momentum can continue with the recruitment of talented faculty, the development of state-of-the-art facilities, and continued outstanding educational opportunities for our student cohort,” Dessouky said.
Since the department’s 2002 naming, ISE at USC has expanded its key strengths in computational and data-centric decision-making, health care policy, transportation and optimization. Departmental research has contributed to policy and real-world benefits in areas such as resource allocation for social welfare, health care, transportation, security, e-commerce and the environment.
Department faculty members hold leadership roles in major research centers such as the METRANS Transportation Consortium, the USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society, the USC Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergencies, the Meta Center for Research and Education in AI and Learning, and the USC Capital One Center for Responsible AI and Decision Making in Finance.
Epstein’s endowment to the department over more than two decades has enabled the establishment of chairs, and the founding of the Daniel J. Epstein Institute. In 2020, the department launched a new Master of Science in Health Systems Management Engineering aimed at equipping industrial engineers with unique skills to address the urgent needs of an increasingly strained U.S. healthcare sector.
“We are continuing to expand our reach in interdisciplinary areas such as computational systems, machine learning and artificial intelligence,” Dessouky said. “We look forward to continuing our department’s ambitious plan to grow research excellence and enhance student experiences into the future.”
Published on April 16th, 2025
Last updated on April 16th, 2025
