Massport Advisory Council

de Neufille and Widnall

ESD supporters Gelb and Tyson also named

January 2003

The Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Logan airport and the port of Boston, has announced the creation of an advisory council to explore the use of new security technologies. Several of the council members are from MIT, including two professors from the Engineering Systems Division (ESD) and two others who have close ties to the Division.

"The level of the group we have here is really quite senior," Massport chief executive officer Craig Coy told the Associated Press. "We're here in Boston, Massachusetts, and this is a center for some really outstanding work. I wanted to get as much of that expertise as I could."

The pro-bono council, called the Massport Security Advisory Council, includes local leaders in academia, high-tech, and the military. Council members will review security concerns and potential solutions and work individually with Massport staff within their fields of expertise.

MIT members include two ESD professors: Richard de Neufville, founder and former director of the Technology and Policy Program (TPP) and a professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering systems; and Sheila Widnall, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems and former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force.

Two other members have MIT/ESD ties. Arthur Gelb, chair of Massport, is president of Four Sigma Corporation, a member of the MIT Corporation and of the ESD visiting committee, former head of the CTPID visiting committee, and an early member of the visiting committee for ESD’s Technology and Policy Program (TPP). Mitch Tyson, former CEO of PRI Automation, is a long-time friend of TPP. He will be presenting a lecture to the TPP/ESD community on Wednesday, January 15, as part of TPP’s upcoming IAP seminar series on issues in technology and policy. Tyson’s presentation is entitled "Innovation, Passion, and Challenging Authority: Addressing technology and Policy in Complex, Large, Integrated Open Systems (CLIOs)."

Other MIT-affiliated members of the Massport Advisory Council include David Briggs, director of MIT Lincoln Laboratories and Patrick Winston, professor of electrical engineering and computer science. Christopher R. Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council and Major Gen. Craig P. Weston, U.S. Air Force Vice Commander of Electronic Systems Center are also members of the Massport council.