ESD
Hosts Engineering Leaders for Engineering
Systems Workshop
By
Lois Slavin
On
October 14-15, 2003, representatives
from several of the most prestigious
engineering programs in Europe and
the United States convened in Cambridge,
Mass., for the Engineering Systems
Workshop, hosted by MIT’s Engineering
Systems Division (ESD). These schools
have engineering systems programs
which include different combinations
of operations research, industrial
engineering, systems engineering,
technology and policy, and engineering
and management, including entrepreneurship
and management of technology.
The
Engineering Systems Workshop provided
a forum in which attendees –
many of whom are leaders in their
schools’ engineering programs
and were meeting each other for the
first time – could discuss the
emerging field of engineering systems.
Provost Robert Brown and Dean of the
School of Engineering Thomas Magnanti
made a presentation to participants
on Engineering Systems and attendees
had ample opportunity for lively,
engaging discussions with ESD faculty.
The
purpose of the workshop was threefold:
-
to ascertain whether group members
would identify any commonalities
in their thinking
-
to determine if the group would
support and participate in the ESD
Engineering Systems Symposium, scheduled
for March 29-31, 2004 and
-
to identify other group initiatives.
According
to ESD Co-Director Daniel Roos, the
workshop was successful in all three
areas.
“Over the two days, the group
formed a community, agreed on many
common objectives and several joint
areas of interest, such as professional
societies, journals, peer review groups,
and student employment, and agreed
to support the forthcoming ESD Engineering
Systems Symposium in March, 2004,”
said Roos. “They are also interested
in using the ESD
Engineering Systems Learning Center
as a mechanism to share educational
materials.
ESD
Co-Director Daniel Hastings observed
that the workshop was “another
step in galvanizing the academic community
towards a shared vision of Engineering
Systems and in crafting the formation
and definition of this new discipline.”
Attendees included Jim Bean (University
of Michigan), Mike Gregory (University
of Cambridge), Manuel V. Heitor (Instituto
Superior/Tecnico, Technical University
of Lisbon, PT), Barry Horowitz (University
of Virginia), Peter Jackson (Cornell
University), Alexander Levis (George
Mason University), M. Granger Morgan
(Carnegie Mellon University), M. Elisabeth
Pate-Cornell (Stanford University),
Rama Reddy (University of Arkansas),
Bill Rouse (Georgia Tech) Raja Sengupta,
(UCal Berkeley), Stan Settles (University
of Southern California), Henk G. Sol
(Delft University of Technology),
Mark Spong (University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign), James Tien (Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute). In addition
to ESD’s Roos and Hastings,
other participating MIT/ESD faculty
and teaching staff included Tom Allen,
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, and Joel
Moses.
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