Professor Emeritus, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering

Email

Preferred: louis.freund@sjsu.edu

Office Hours

email for appointment

• Not currently teaching classes

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, Univ Of Michigan Ann Arbor, 1969

Bio

Dr. Freund is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.  He is also appointed as an Adjunct Professor with responsibility in the ISE Department for defining new projects for the Senior Design teams each semester, as well as managing the development of the Li Manufacturing Processes Lab.  In addition, Dr. Freund currently serves as the Coordinator for two programs in the College of Engineering: the college's Co-op Program, aimed at offering Sophomores and Juniors off-campus full-time work experiences, and the Engineering Project Partners Program (EP³). 

Previously at SJSU, Dr. Freund taught courses in the areas of Human Factors Engineering, Service Systems Engineering, work measurement, process (quality) control, system simulation, and engineering economics. He is the founder and first Director of the ISE Graduate Program in Human Factors/Ergonomics.  He served as ISE Department Chair from 2001-2009.  He also currently consults in the area of workplace design, process control, systems simulation, database research, and organizational re-engineering projects.

Following completion of his graduate studies and military service, Dr. Freund joined the industrial engineering faculty at the University of Missouri in 1971. While at Missouri, he directed the Health Care Systems Training Grant for doctoral students in industrial engineering and obtained and directed a research grant related to measuring the difficulty of nursing assignments in inpatient nursing units. He also introduced an undergraduate Human Factors Engineering course and developed the department's lab capabilities in that area.

He joined Medicus Systems Corporation in 1975 and advanced to the position of Senior Vice President. While with Medicus, he directed management engineering programs at Medicus client sites, developed a nurse staffing product and business, directed the Client Services group of Spectra Medical Systems (a Medicus subsidiary), and had responsibility for Medicus' western region management engineering business. Between 1982 and 1986, Dr. Freund worked as an independent consultant in health care systems. His projects included operating room management systems design and implementation and nurse staffing studies.

Dr. Freund joined the faculty at San Jose State University in 1986 as an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He was tenured and promoted to full Professor in 1992. His areas of concentration have been in the development of the Human Factors / Ergonomics areas. In 1992, Dr. Freund formed the Silicon Valley Ergonomics Institute at SJSU. The Institute promoted educational, research, and applications oriented programs in HF/E. It introduced ErgoCon, the Silicon Valley Ergonomics Conference and Exposition in May, 1995. He also formed and was the first Director of the SJSU interdisciplinary MS degree program in Human Factors / Ergonomics.  

Between 1985 and 1995 Dr. Freund was also continuously engaged as a consultant with MECON Associates of San Ramon California. His projects included developing and testing an acuity system for hemodialysis patients (with the American Nephrology Nurses Association), developing inpatient acuity and nurse staffing methodologies, developing an economic process control approach to nurse staffing decisions with a hospital client, and participating in hospital wide resource utilization evaluations using the MECON PEERx database. He also developed and published brief studies relating to hospital operations based on the PEERx database.

He served as the Director of the Health Services Division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) from 1977 - 79. In 1988 Dr. Freund was elected to the founding Board of the Society for Health Systems (SHS) of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. He served as the President of SHS in 1991, during which time he founded the Directors of Management Engineering (DOME) Forum. In 1992, he received the SHS Special Citation for Contributions to Industrial Engineering in Health Services. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and a member of the Health Applications Section Council of the Operations Research Society of America (ORSA). He has held various posts with these organizations such as Journal Issue Editor, newsletter editor, Conference Chair, and Conference Program Chair. He also served as the IISE Region VII Vice President, and for several years as Faculty Advisor to the IISE Student Chapter at San Jose State.  

His recent research interests have been in the application of process control models to problems in health care systems. He is currently working on a an professional growth and achievement tracking app called MyT-Me, built around the T-shape professional paradigm.

He resides in Sunnyvale California with his wife, Alice, a portrait artist and SNAP leader.