Mary Elizabeth Kurz

Mary Elizabeth Kurz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University's College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences. Her research focuses on scheduling optimization, metaheuristics, and assembly line balancing for complex manufacturing systems.

Education:

• B.S., Systems Engineering, University of Arizona (1995)
• M.S., Systems Engineering, University of Arizona (1997)
• Ph.D., Systems and Industrial Engineering, University of Arizona (2001)

Research interests include:

• Development of heuristics and metaheuristics for scheduling
• Assembly line balancing with ergonomic constraints
• Flexible flowline scheduling with sequence-dependent setups
• Application of genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization

Recent work trends show applications in opioid crisis modeling, photolithography scheduling, and automotive configuration management. She has presented at INFORMS and IISE conferences, with special emphasis on multi-objective optimization and real-world industrial constraints.

Scientific awards:

• Third Place Best Paper, ASME Manufacturing Engineering Division (2014)

As an INFORMS member and Institute of Industrial Engineers Senior member, she has taught courses in operations research, decision support systems, and metaheuristics. Her work spans both theoretical and applied domains, with a strong focus on manufacturing system efficiency.