Suryansh Gupta

For Suryansh Gupta, industrial engineering is about understanding how people and systems interact and using data to help both.

While many people associate the field with manufacturing, Gupta sees it as being more expansive. It’s a way to analyze complex systems and improve outcomes across many industries.

“Industrial engineering is really about solving problems in any field,” he says. “It’s about using data to understand systems and make better decisions.”

This spring, Gupta graduates from the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, with a degree in industrial engineering and a second degree in innovation in society from the Rob Walton College of Global Futures. An Impact Award recipient, he has built his experience around applying data and analytics to a wide range of challenges.

That focus became clear in a quality control course, where he applied statistical methods to detect “out-of-control” conditions, or moments when a process breaks down and requires intervention.

“Seeing how math could be applied to solve these problems made me realize industrial engineering was the right path for me,” he says.

Gupta expanded that interest through research in the Human in-Mind Engineering Research Lab under the mentorship of Heejin Jeong, an assistant professor of human systems engineering in The Polytechnic School. There, Gupta worked on a project using eye-tracking technology to study how people process instructions during a 3D printing task. By analyzing differences in cognitive load and visual attention, the research compared how individuals responded to instructions generated by artificial intelligence, or AI, versus a human.

The experience gave Gupta a deeper understanding of how data can reveal patterns in human behavior and improve the design of systems that people interact with every day.

“While the project itself didn’t develop AI, we explored how AI-generated task instructions affect visual attention and cognitive load, using eye-tracking to analyze patterns,” he says. “It was a fascinating way to see how AI interacts with human behavior.”

Beyond research, Gupta has been recognized for his academic excellence, earning the Moeur Award and induction into the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society.

After graduation, Gupta plans to pursue a master’s degree in statistics, continuing to build his expertise in data analysis and problem-solving. In the future, he hopes to apply those skills to tackle complex challenges across industries, helping organizations and communities make more informed, effective decisions.

Favorites

Hobby: Playing guitar
Band: Avenged Sevenfold
Movie: World War Z
Sport: Tennis
Game: Minecraft, League of Legends

Read about other exceptional graduates of the Fulton Schools’ spring 2026 class.

Written by Kelly deVos