Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering Chair Subhashini Ganapathy receives DBJ Diversity Champion Award

Subhashini Ganapathy, professor and chair of biomedical, industrial and human factors engineering, was honored at the Dayton Business Journal 2022 Diversity in Business Awards ceremony.

Subhashini Ganapathy, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering at Wright State University, was honored as a diversity champion by the Dayton Business Journal.

Ganapathy received a 2022 Diversity in Business Award: Outstanding Diversity Champion. She was recognized in a special awards section in the DBJ and at an awards event on Aug. 18 at Sinclair Community College. Wright State was an associate title sponsor of the event.

The Outstanding Diversity Champion Award honors individuals who have shown outstanding initiative to promote diversity and inclusion either in their organization or community, making a positive difference in others’ lives through contributions to social justice, equality and diversity.

Ganapathy is a champion of diversity, equity and inclusion and has helped increase the diversity of the students in the Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering.

Ganapathy is also an important role model to women who want to enter the field of engineering. She is involved in several initiatives to increase awareness of STEM education among underrepresented groups in high schools and participates in several mentoring activities to promote diversity and inclusion. For instance, she recently participated as a mentor for STEM Goes Red for Girls Dayton, an event sponsored by the American Heart Association that introduces young women to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In addition to chairing the Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering, Ganapathy is an assistant professor of trauma care and surgery at the Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and the research director of Interaction Design and Modeling Lab in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. The lab explores human-computer interaction and seeks to understand how technology can help enable healthier and more socially connected and reflective living.

Her areas of research include integrating technology for improving human performance, health and wellness, design thinking, user-experience assessment and human factors engineering.

Ganapathy also serves as the chair of Wright State’s Intel Initiative, an effort to establish a long-term relationship with the Intel Corporation, which is building two chip factories near Columbus, and align academic programs across the university to help provide a skilled workforce for Intel and its associated industries and expand opportunities for students.

Wright State is among a group of leading research institutions from Ohio, Indiana and Michigan that recently launched the Midwest Regional Network to Address National Needs in Semiconductor and Microelectronics in response to Intel’s plans.

This is not the first time Ganapathy was honored by the Dayton Business Journal. In 2017, she was named to its annual Forty Under 40 list

In 2014, she received a Faculty Award for Excellence in Early Career Achievement from Wright State.

She has also received the Outstanding Engineers’ and Scientists’ Award from the Affiliate Societies Council in Dayton, an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE), a Microsoft Azure Research Award and a Bonder Scholar Research Grant.

In a TEDxDayton presentation in 2020, Ganapathy discussed how industrial and systems engineering is an exciting and fun area and how it makes a difference in everyday life.

Ganapathy earned her bachelor’s degree in instrumentation and control engineering from Madras University in India and her master’s in human factors and industrial engineering and Ph.D. in humans in complex systems from Wright State.