Shereazad Jimmy Gandhi

On the effect he hopes to have on students and CSUN...

At the end of my career, I want others to comment on my role for the betterment of CSUN. Because I think that’s what would truly bring me joy to see others understand and appreciate the role I played at CSUN.

On the most exciting trends in his field, and why we should care...

"People should be innovative and progressive and keep up with industry needs and make changes relatively fast."

On what drives or compels him to keep pushing the boundaries...

In my opinion, research and teaching interests should overlap to a certain extent. For me, research experiences help me teach better and pass on that new knowledge gained to my students which improves their overall experience. In many cases, it also gives them hands-on examples of how to apply concepts in industry.

On what it means to be at CSUN...

Being at CSUN is being at the place which has given me a TON of opportunities for which I am very grateful. It also inspires me to give my best to my students and to my colleagues who it is a pleasure to work with.

On engaging students in sustainability and challenges in manufacturing...

It’s about creating innovation in the global supply chain and how to implement sustainability, about understanding both the environmental and social pieces for the supply chain. The environmental aspect is tangible. The social aspect has a lot of intangibles, and varies so much from country to country. That’s why it's extremely challenging to come up with a standard and something that the Sustainability Consortium and other bodies are working on and that is part of what students in the Sustainability class will work on as well. In the Research Practicum in Engineering Management class, we take the students to a partner university in Germany for a one-week immersive program and visit well known German companies such as Audi, BMW, Continental and MAN Trucks. Students attend lectures and then interact with the heads of sustainability and global supply chain at these companies to get an insight about how things are done in industry as our goal is to better prepare them to hit the ground running when they go into industry.

On what he does for a living...

My job involves three aspects – of which teaching is one piece. There is a significant research component as well as service component. The important thing is not doing all three in a vacuum, but to connect and create synergy for the efforts you put into those three areas. I do research in the field, but then I translate that research into lessons learned and create hands-on assignments for the students.