Teaching Assistant Professor - Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering
Makenzie Keeper's first and foremost passion is teaching and learning, which she discovered during her first peer tutoring role at the age of 12. She started her academic journey in the IMSE department as a BSIE student in January 2017. She received her BSIE in 2019, and subsequently started her PhD in Industrial Engineering as the department’s first-ever direct-admit PhD IE student. Her PhD research focused on the gamification of assembly operations for manufacturing, where she explored how the addition of game-like elements to non-game contexts may affect production and the workers. Some of her preliminary research has been published in the Journal of Manufacturing Systems [IF: 9.498] and various conference proceedings including those from Advances in Production Management Systems (APMS) and CIRPe.
In her current role, she primarily focuses her work on supporting the students in and out of the IMSE department with their courses and work-life balance. She is dedicated to exploring new teaching styles to provide her students with the most valuable learning experience possible and believes strongly in providing real-life applications of course materials. Dr. Dolly finds immense value in working closely with alumni to ensure relevant and timely course materials, as well as partnering with companies in the community to provide unique learning experiences for students and to uphold the land-grant mission of the University.
In addition to her primary role, she is the coordinator for the Industrial Engineering Capstone Program (IECP), which she launched in 2023. The IECP aims to develop mutually beneficial relationships with businesses in the community and senior-level Industrial Engineering students, by providing free-of-cost industrial engineering support. Using her industrial experiences which lend more towards manufacturing, she leads the IECP student teams and enthusiastically explores the challenges often associated with unique applications of industrial engineering in less common settings, such as healthcare, service operations, and operational excellence.
Education
PhD - Industrial Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 2023
Certificate in University Teaching, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 2021
BS - Industrial Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 2019