Subhash Sarin honored with 2013 Alumni Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising
Subhash Sarin, the Paul T. Norton Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has received the university's 2013 Alumni Award for Excellence in Graduate Academic Advising.
Established by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, the Alumni Award for Excellence in Graduate Academic Advising is presented annually by the Office of the Provost to Virginia Tech faculty members who have been particularly dedicated and effective while advising graduate students. Recipients, who may be nominated by university faculty members or students, are selected by a committee of former award winners, receive a $2,000 prize, and are inducted into the university’s Academy of Advising Excellence.
A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1983, Sarin was named an endowed professor in 2002. He has advised 55 master’s degree and 23 doctoral degree students to completion of their degree. In addition, he has served on more than 60 master’s degree and more than 80 Ph.D. committees. His passion for guiding students extends to undergraduates as well. Sarin has guided 52 senior design teams, many of which have won awards.
“Subhash’s students strive to please him, and his standards are difficult to meet,” said G. Don Taylor Jr., Charles O. Gordon professor and department head. “Even so, he guides them through their research, keeps them engaged, interested, and challenged so that the high level of required achievement never becomes onerous.”
A number of Sarin’s students have won major national and international awards for the excellence of their research efforts, and at least a dozen have taken tenure-track academic positions after graduation.
“It would be no exaggeration to say that Dr. Sarin has been the single largest influence on all my academic activities,” said Rajiv Srivastava, professor of operations management at the Indian Institute of Management and former student. “He is certainly one of the most balanced academics I have come across in the institutions I have been associated with.”
Sarin is also director of the Electronics Manufacturing Research Laboratory and associate director of the Center for High Performance Manufacturing.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi (India), a master’s degree from Kansas State, and a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.
Written by Catherine Doss.
