Engineering graduate wins global competition for her research on theme park priority passes

Katherine Craig (’25), who graduated from Liberty University in May with a B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering, won the undergraduate category of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers’ Global Technical Paper Competition at its annual conference held May 31-June 3 in Atlanta.

Craig’s first-place entry was titled “A Tale of Two Queues: A Simulation-Based Comparison of Priority Queuing at Universal Studios and Walt Disney World Theme Parks.”  She had firsthand knowledge of the two parks having grown up visiting Disney World several times with her family before participating in an internship with Universal Studios during the 2023-24 academic year, taking the fall semester off before continuing her studies online in the spring as she focused on process improvements within the park.

“When I saw last October that Disney was introducing a new type of priority pass, I was interested to see the impact of that pass on the guest experience and wanted to test which system was optimal for guest satisfaction,” Craig said, noting her 14-page paper was based on research results using the discrete-event simulation library SimPy in the Python programming language, which models a system’s processes and events within a specified period of time. “Through that program, I created a 20-attraction theme park and ran it for 12-hour days to test the Universal and the Disney priority queuing systems which resulted in a metric of average daily rides per guest. The code brought different challenges, but I was able to push through them with many late nights of research and a fair amount of prayer.”

Craig, also a member of Liberty’s Club Sports women’s triathlon team, already has an impressive list of internships on her résumé, including with the Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir, Va.; Mercury Systems, a manufacturing company in Chantilly, Va., that provides servers for aerospace and defense contracts; and as a space division analyst at BryceTech, a research consulting company in Alexandria, Va.

“Katey is one of the most amazing students I’ve ever met,” said Dr. Diana Schwerha, professor and chair of Liberty’s Industrial & Systems Engineering Department. “She is so driven and so mature. I couldn’t have been happier for her to have worked so hard and to see her efforts rewarded.”

Craig qualified for the global paper competition after finishing first at the IISE’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference from Feb. 21-23 in Knoxville, Tenn., one of 11 regions —  including four outside of the United States — to send qualifiers.

Two years ago, she competed in the regional conference with a paper focused on model-based systems engineering analysis of a deep-space communication system. She placed second, narrowly missing a global bid.

Schwerha said Craig’s experience in the theme park industry fueled her research.

“Her internship gave her the perspective and background to know what questions to ask in her research,” she added. “ISE students are always asking, ‘How do I improve the operations, how do I make it cost-effective, and how do I make it safe for the employees?’ She did the simulation — that was the engineering side — then took the results and did a cost analysis to benefit the business by being cost-effective.”

Craig said she appreciated the opportunity “to represent a school whose motto is Training Champions for Christ.”

“Professors in the School of Engineering impress on us the importance of bringing God into our work,” she added. “From my professors’ teachings and my internship experience, I was able to create a successful simulation and share with others how industrial engineering can be applied to the theme park industry.”

This past Monday, Craig started her fifth internship since first enrolling at Liberty, a 16-week full-time position at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where she will focus on pricing strategy and get a behind-the-scenes look at how Disney operates its theme parks and resorts.

“It’s a very incredible opportunity to use engineering to help tell the stories that the theme parks are telling their guests,” Craig said, noting the position will involve data analytics and coding. “I will be working on the revenue side of things, to price tickets and resorts and even the Lightning Lane passes. I love the theme park industry, and it’s fun to use my industrial and systems engineering knowledge to help make people smile.”