Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems

Dr. Leveson holds a Ph.D. from UCLA. She was a Computer Science professor at the University of California, then became Boeing Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.

Professor Leveson’s research focuses on topics related to the design of complex systems containing software, hardware, and human components. Her goal is to stretch current limits of complexity and intellectual manageability of the systems we can build with reasonable resources and with confidence in their expected behavior, particularly safety. Current research topics include; model-based system and software engineering, system and software safety, software requirements specification and analysis, human-computer interaction, reusable component-based system architectures, interactive visualization, human-centered system design, and comprehensive approaches to risk management that include the organizational, political, managerial, and social aspects of system construction and operation.

News and announcements:

Books Published by Nancy Leveson

Leveson Named to Federal 100 List (February 15, 2008)

Risk Analysis for NASA’s Constellation Program, MIT CSRL Final Report (.pdf) (March 29, 2007)

Professor Leveson participates in BP Refineries' independent safety review panel report (January 18, 2007)

INCOSE Gives Three Best Paper Awards to MIT (August 13, 2004)

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and Nancy Leveson Win Best Paper at International Conference of the System Safety Society (August 13, 2004)

Leveson Honored with ACM's 2004 Outstanding Research Award (May 6, 2004)

Computing Research Association Names ESD Professor Nancy Leveson as Distinguished Professor (December 2003)

ESD professor and students receive INCOSE Best Paper Award (July 2003)

SAE names Leveson/ Bachelder work as one of best aerospace research papers of 2001 (November 13, 2002)