Trustees Name Muckstadt a Weiss Fellow, Recognizing Him as One of Cornell's Top Teachers

The Cornell Board of Trustees has designated Professor John A. "Jack" Muckstadt as a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in recognition of his excellence in teaching, advising undergraduate students, improvements in instruction and contributions to daily life at Cornell.  The designation follows what the Cornell Daily Sun calls a "sea of nominations" by former students.

Muckstadt is the only Cornell faculty member chosen for the honor this year, and joins 50 other tenured faculty members chosen since the Trustees established the fellowships in 1993 in honor of the late Stephen H. Weiss, former chair of the Board.  In conveying the award, which includes a $5000-a-year stipend for five years, Cornell President David J. Skorton noted Muckstadt's love of teaching and his willingness to go "above and beyond" to help students.   He lauded Muckstadt's "clear, logical class presentations" (which he revises extensively each year and rehearses before each lecture) and his "use of Socratic dialogue and experiential learning to develop critical thinking skills."

Muckstadt told the Cornell Chronicle that he tries to "teach students how to think about [solving supply chain] problems" ... based on the scientific method: "you test the hypothesis, you revise it and you take action on it, and this is an ongoing thing."   He brings extensive practical experience to the classroom, based on his consulting with dozens of companies on issues relating to manufacturing logistics and supply chain systems.  In August 2000, Fortune Magazine reported on Muckstadt's work with Dennis Severance to improve operations at the Van Wert, Ohio plant of Aeroquip, now part of Eaton Corporation. Severance is  the Accenture Professor of Business Information Systems at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

More recently, Muckstadt has become involved in the logistics of disease and disaster recovery, a topic much in the news following the breakout of H1N1 virus and the earthquake in Haiti.   With Professor Nathaniel Hupert of Weill Cornell, he established the Insitute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness, now located at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.  As a result of his expertise, Muckstadt was named a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Muckstadt, the Acheson-Laibe Professor of Business Management and Leadership Studies,  has an AB  in mathematics from the University of Rochester as well as an MA in mathematics, MS in industrial administration and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the University of Michigan.  He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society, a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and the author, with his student Amar Sapra of the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, of "Principles of Inventory Management: When You are Down to Four, Order More," recently published by Springer.    Muckstadt served as Director of the School from 1987 to 1996.  With his wife Linda, he has been a generous contributor to the School's endowment, including funding for the School's instructional computer infrastructure.  

Muckstadt was one of 10 faculty honored for teaching and advising at a dinner and recognition ceremony on May 29 with presentations by President David Skorton, Provost Kent Fuchs, and Trustee chairman Peter Meinig.