This scholarship was established in May 2024 by Dr. Robert Dailey (MS 1979, PhD 1985) and is awarded to undergraduate students in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering.
Brief Bio for Robert F. Dailey, Ph.D., August 2024.
Bob Dailey was born during the post-WWII baby boom and raised in the western suburbs of Cleveland. He graduated from St. Edward High School in Lakewood, then attended the University of Notre Dame where he majored in mathematics. Upon graduating, his first job was to teach math at Hoban High School in Akron. From there, Bob attended Ohio State as a graduate student, majoring in Industrial and Systems (now Integrated Systems) Engineering. He supported himself by teaching ISE courses and working as an advisor at the College of Engineering. Bob was honored with the OSU Graduate Associate Teaching Award (one of ten university-wide), and managed the Edward Kemmler Scholarship House. His doctoral dissertation considers applied stochastic processes (queueing analysis).
Bob’s career path has been anything but usual. He taught math and computer science at various institutions in the US, but also at La Universidad de Chile. In Santiago at the end of the 16+ year dictatorship, Bob worked to promote human rights, cared for abandoned children, and managed a program for recent US college grads who would spend two years volunteering in social service projects.
After a decades-long career as an educator, Bob switched to telecommunications for the next 20 years. He was Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Labs where he worked as a network design engineer, merging disparate voice and data systems into a unified network. His name is on more than 40 US patents. During those years, Bob devoted much of his time to non-profit board service, focusing on health, labor and civic matters affecting minority populations.
Bob retired in 2017, but has remained active as an educator. He is currently a tutor in the AVID program for the Austin Independent School District at a Title I high school. He also spends time at KOOP Community Radio where he hosted the program “Civil Rights and Wrongs” for four years.
“I have many fond memories of my days at Ohio State,” Bob notes. “I met so many hard-working students there – kids who had to support themselves through their undergraduate years. This scholarship is an expression of gratitude for the inspiration that they provided to me.”