William L. Maxwell, Cornell University professor emeritus of operations research and industrial engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. It is one of the highest honors an engineer can receive.

Academy membership honors those who have made "important contributions to engineering theory and practice, including significant contributions to the literature of engineering theory and practice" and those who have demonstrated "unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology," according to the academy.

"I'm humbled, and I'm honored," Maxwell said.

Maxwell will be formally inducted into the academy at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., Oct. 4.

Maxwell received his bachelor of mechanical engineering degree in 1957 and his Ph.D. in 1961, both from Cornell, and remained to join the faculty. He became the first Andrew J. Shultz Jr. Professor of Industrial Engineering in 1985.

Despite a reputation for "torturous" exams, he was selected by students to receive the 1967 Excellence in Teaching award sponsored by the Cornell Society of Engineers and Tau Beta Pi. Then in 1997, he received the Ralph S. Watts '72 College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching award.

His research has focused on the scheduling of industrial production, a complex area that involves coordinating the manufacture and delivery of parts, customer orders and situations on the shop floor to deliver completed products just when they are needed but without expensive overproduction. He has been part of a group of faculty members in the School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering and the Johnson Graduate School of Management studying these problems.

Maxwell has been a Ford Foundation distinguished visiting professor at the University of Chicago and a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. He has been a consultant in residence at

the RAND Corp., General Motors and SI Handling Systems. He is a member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, the Operations Research Society of America and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He currently works half time for a company that designs enterprise software.

The National Academy of Engineering was formed in 1964 as a sister organization to the National Academy of Sciences. Its main mission is to provide advice to the federal government on engineering issues. There are 22 other members at Cornell.