U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region

IISE's U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region (District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia) has more than 1,200 active IISE members in the 6 professional chapters and ten university chapters. The mission of this regional website is to provide value to our members by offering a connection point that represents the needs, concerns and support efforts of IISE members in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

	Regional Vice President - Rajiv Saxena Rajiv Saxena is Senior Vice President over the Supply Chain Solutions division, where he is responsible for Kenco’s engineering, solution design, pricing, continuous improvement, advanced data analytics, digital transformation and innovation areas. Rajiv has extensive experience and expertise in developing global supply chain strategies, solutions, systems and processes to coincide with changing market demands, operational needs and competitive pressures. He combines analytical, business, operational, technological and leadership skills to identify, develop and implement supply chain solutions to provide companies competitive differentiation on both the cost and service dimensions, Before joining Kenco, Rajiv held leadership positions at APL Logistics, Menlo Logistics (now XPO), and CEVA Logistics. Additionally, he worked for General Electric Company and S. B. Billimoria & Company (affiliated with Ernst & Young). During his professional career of over 25 years, he had leading roles covering diverse functional areas such as Supply Chain Engineering, Information Technology, Industrial Engineering, Business Strategy Development, Lean/ Six Sigma, Global Trade Compliance, Sustainability, Advanced Data Analytics and Innovation. He is widely regarded as a logistics and supply chain thought leader and has been highly successful in building and leading global capabilities and teams. He is a regular speaker at INFORMS, CSCMP and IIE conferences as well as at several leading academic institutes and industry forums. He has extensively published on different logistics and supply chain as well as productivity improvement related topics in several magazines. He has a PhD in Operations Management from Simon School of Business, University of Rochester, a Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Engineering from National Institute of Training in Industrial Engineering, Mumbai, and a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.
	Assistant Regional Vice President Dr. Abdullah Al Khaled is a senior data scientist at Asurion in Nashville, Tennessee. In his role at Asurion, Abdullah focuson applying big data analytics, machine leering & deep learning techniques to solve different business problems related to mobility insurance, and applies supply chain optimization techniques for its claim recovery and remanufacturing processes. He received his Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from Mississippi State University (MSU) in 2013. He earned both M.S. and B.S. in industrial and production engineering from BUET, and graduate certificate in supply chain management from Penn State. Prior to joining Asurion, Dr. Khaled served as senior data scientist in a healthcare IT company named Influence Health in Birmingham, Alabama. During his time at Mississippi State, Abdullah was involved with the student chapters of IISE and INFORMS at MSU; including serving as treasurer for the later. He is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE). As the assistant vice president for IISE Mid-Atlantic, Abdullah hopes to become more active to elaborate communication between student and professional chapters within the region.
	Assistant Vice President of Student Development Laurie Moravec is an industrial engineer at Michelin in Greenville, South Carolina. Laurie graduated from Clemson University in 2015 and has been an active IISE member since 2012. During her time at Clemson, Laurie dedicated her time to the industrial engineering department at Clemson and IISE through leadership roles and attending five IISE university conferences. She started her leadership roles within IISE as social chair and then became president for two years as well as a regional conference co-chair. As the assistant vice president of student development, Laurie hopes to help chapters find ways to become more active within their universities, create university chapter best practices for the region, and help the university chapters who are hosting the regional conference.
	Young Professional Chair Dr. Nelson A. Granda is an assistant professor in the School of Engineering + Technology at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, where he teaches industrial engineering courses to engineering technology students. Before becoming a professor, Nelson worked for several years in the eolic and aerospace industry. During his tenure on the industry Nelson worked in numerous projects related to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and PW F-135. Nelson has a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, a master's degree in manufacturing engineering from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Nelson has been actively involved with IISE since 2013, when he was elected student board member of the Sustainable Development Division. From 2014 to 2017, he was co-chair of the ISERC track of the SDD and help in the organization of the volunteer activity for the Annual Conference. Nelson currently serves as president-elect of the SDD.