Academic members

PC Academic Co-Chair

Michel-Alexandre CARDIN

Dr. Michel-Alexandre CARDIN is Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Engineering Systems Division, the NUS Institute of Real Estate Studies, and co-investigator in the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. He is Associate Editor of the INCOSE journal Systems Engineering, Committee Member of the INCOSE Singapore Chapter, and member of the Editorial Review Board of the international journal IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. His research focuses on the development, experimental evaluation, and real-world applications of novel methodologies to design and architect complex engineering systems for uncertainty and flexibility - also known as real options. He has worked with international collaborators in different industries including aerospace, nuclear, real estate, offshore oil exploration, and transportation. He earned a PhD and Master’s degree in Engineering Systems from MIT, a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto, and a honors BSc in Physics from McGill University. He is also a graduate from the International Space University

PC Academic Members

Lynette CHEAH

Lynette CHEAH is an Assistant Professor in Engineering Systems and Design with the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). She is passionate about achieving sustainable mobility, and her research interest is in life-cycle energy and environmental assessment methods, which she has applied to the domain of transportation systems. Prior to joining A*STAR, Lynette was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Materials Systems Laboratory at MIT, and a research assistant at the Sloan Automotive Laboratory at MIT. She is a Singapore National Science Scholar, and a Fellow with the Martin Family Society for Sustainability. Lynette holds a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Northwestern University, an M.S. in management science from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in engineering systems from MIT.

Aaron CHIA

Dr Aaron Chia is an Associate Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department in the National University of Singapore. He has a PHD in electrical engineering, an MBA in Technology Management and a degree in psychology.

His main teaching and research focus is on large scale systems engineering and the system dynamics of large scale systems. Examples of large scale systems currently being studied include cities and environment (energy and environment sustainability and solutions, carbon pricing, relationships between energy, climate, water and waste), health care systems (include chronic diseases management, dengue transmission, workplace safety and health), transportation (policy effectiveness, land use, car parks), nuclear energy for Singapore and water management in Singapore. Other research interests include flexibility in systems and real options, supply chain and logistics, risk analysis and decision making, project management, military and multi-disciplinary studies.

Stephano GALELLI

Dr. Stefano GALELLI is assistant professor of Engineering Systems and Design at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. Before joining SUTD, he spent two years as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Singapore-Delft Water Alliance, National University of Singapore.

Dr. GALELLI graduated in Environmental and Land Planning Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 2007, and received a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technology from the same university in early 2011. He carries out research in systems analysis, data-driven modelling and optimization, particularly focusing on their application to water resources modelling and management.

He is member of the IFAC Technical Committee TC8.3 on Modelling and Control of Environmental Systems, and he serves as reviewer for different international journals. For this service, he received the Environmental Modelling & Software 2011 Outstanding Reviewer Award.

Nuno GIL

Nuno is Professor of New Infrastructure Development at the Manchester Business School. Nuno coined the term ‘new infrastructure development’ to designate an intellectual framing that encompasses the intertwined socio-political, financial, and technical challenges characterizing the leadership, management, and governance of mega infrastructure projects, and more broadly, portfolios of megaprojects. Nuno earned a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering, U.C Berkeley, and interdisciplinary certificates in the management of technology and in logistics with the Haas Business School in 2001.

Nuno had professional practice stints in structural engineering and project management, following completion of a 5-year degree in civil engineering in the Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal. Nuno has worked, or done research, with various organizations including IDC/CH2M HILL, Intel, Rolls Royce, BAA (now Heathrow Ltd), BP, Manchester City Council, Network Rail, EDP- Energy of Portugal, London2012, Crossrail, Larsen &Toubro (India), and High Speed 2 Ltd.

Nuno’s research interests focus on exploring ’recipes’ for high-performance development of new infrastructure from early inception of an idea through its gestation, megaproject delivery, and project handover to operations. He investigates alternative combinations of the fundamental ’ingredients’ for developing megaprojects, and portfolios of megaprojects hold by corporations, cities/regions, and nations, including processes and strategy, design architectures, resource acquisition strategies, risk management practices, organizational and governance structures, and leadership. Nuno’s research develops theory, science, intellectual frameworks, and practical methods for communicating with stakeholders how to best structure megaprojects to ensure capital investments unfold efficiently and effectively in multi-stakeholder, uncertain, and resource-constrained environments. A core precept underpinning Nuno’s research posits that a design commons is at the heart of megaprojects.

In 2009, Nuno was the lead editor of the special issue of California Management Review ‘Infrastructure meets Business: Building new bridges, Mending old ones’. In 2012, Nuno became Editor for the R&D and Engineering Projects Department of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. Nuno is the founder and current research director of the Centre for Infrastructure Development (CID) at The University of Manchester.

Paulien HERDER

Paulien HERDER is Professor of Engineering Systems Design in Energy & Industry at Delft University of Technology and scientific director of the international research consortium ‘Next Generation Infrastructures’. She currently is the Director of Research for the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of the TUDelft. She is an expert in design of large-scale complex systems and strategic asset management, mainly in the area of industrial and energy infrastructures.

Joseph KASSER

Joseph KASSER has been a practicing systems engineer more than 40 years and an academic for about 16 years. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), an INCOSE Fellow, the author of “Holistic thinking: creating innovative solutions to complex problems”, “A Framework for Understanding Systems Engineering” and “Applying Total Quality Management to Systems Engineering” and many INCOSE symposia papers. He has received a number of awards for performing and directing systems engineering including NASA’s Manned Space Flight Awareness Award (Silver Snoopy). He holds a Doctor of Science in Engineering Management from The George Washington University. He is a Certified Manager and holds a Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology. He also started and served as the inaugural president of INCOSE Australia and served as a Region VI Representative to the INCOSE Member Board. He has performed and directed systems engineering in the UK, USA, Israel and Australia. He gave up his positions as a Deputy Director and DSTO Associate Research Professor at the Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre at the University of South Australia in early 2007 to move to the UK to develop the world’s first immersion course in systems engineering as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cranfield University. He is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Udo LINDEMANN

Udo LINDEMANN studied Mechanical Engineering at the University Hannover and graduated in 1974. He received his PhD at Technical University Munich in 1979 in the area of Product Development - Systems Engineering. From 1980 until 1995 he worked in different functions in industry. He started in engineering design and finalized his industrial career as CEO of a company within the MAN-Group. In 1995 he became Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Chair of the institute of Product Development within Mechanical Engineering. Beside activities within TUM he is a founding member of the Design Society and for a few years he was their President. He is an elected member of Acatech, the National Academy of Science and Engineering in Germany. He is member of a number of scientific organizations and foundations and editorial boards. His research interests are in the field of systematic product development, dealing with structural complexity, system architecture, system adaptability, human behavior in design, research across different disciplines, and creativity.

Xiao LIU

Xiao LIU is Professor in Industrial Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Deputy Director of Division of International Cooperation and Exchange. Her research focuses on systems modelling and analysis, environmental and energy infrastructures resilient design method and optimization, properties analysis, risk assessment, and robust optimization. Her current research includes the design and application of sustainability indicator development for megacity, vulnerability assessment for uncertainty. She has authored or co-authored more than one hundred technical papers and three books, and currently serves on more than ten international research Journals.

Karthik NATARAJAN

Karthik is Associate Professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. He got his PhD degree in High Computation for Engineered Systems at the National University of Singapore in 2004 and has published numerous articles in the concerned domains.

William NUTTALL

William J. NUTTALL is Professor of Energy at The Open University, based in Milton Keynes, UK. Professor Nuttall’s career has taken him from experimental physics (PhD MIT USA 1993) to technology policy with an emphasis on energy issues. He is an Associate Researcher of the University of Cambridge Electricity Policy Research Group and he is a member of the management committee of the Cambridge Nuclear Energy Centre (CNEC). He teaches on the associated CNEC MPhil in Nuclear Energy. He is author of Nuclear Renaissance -Technologies and Policies for the Future of Nuclear Power (Taylor and Francis, 2005), co-editor of several other books and an author of more than fifty journal articles. In 2011 Dr NUTTALL was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics (IOP). He is a founding member of the committee for the Nonlinear and Complex Physics Group of the IOP. Professor Nuttall’s research has included the use of system dynamics, agent-based simulation and consideration of engineering flexibility. He is work package leader for a UK collaborative research project Management of Nuclear Risk Issues: Environmental Financial and Safety- “NREFS”. He serves on the Competitiveness Sub-Group of the European Nuclear Energy Forum; he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Next Generation Infrastructures in the Netherlands; he serves on the Nuclear Power Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; he is a Fellow of Hughes Hall Cambridge and he is an Adjunct Professor of the City University of Hong Kong.

Seiko SHIRASAKA

Dr.Seiko SHIRASAKA earned a Master’s degree in Astronautics from University of Tokyo and Doctral degree in Systems Engineering from KEIO university.

He worked for Mitsubishi Electric Corporation as space systems engineer for 15 years. He is an Associate Professor at Graduate School of System Design and Management at KEIO university since 2008. His main research topics are system assurance, system development methodology and system innovation.

Afreen SIDDIQI

Dr. Afreen Siddiqi is a Research Scientist in the Engineering Systems Division at MIT. She has an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering, S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Systems, all from MIT. She is also a Visiting Scholar in the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School.

Dr. Siddiqi’s current work has two broad themes. The first lies at the intersection of technology, management, and planning with a key focus on quantitative analysis of the linkages between water, energy, and food security at urban, provincial, and national scales in different regions of the world. The second focus is on analyzing the systems of scientific research and technical innovation in emerging countries to identify strategic planning and policy options for economic diversification and industrial competitiveness.

Dr. Siddiqi is an author of over 55 publications, some of which have appeared in leading journals such as ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Energy Policy, and Water International. Her opinion editorials on water policy and the energy, water, food nexus have appeared in The Express Tribune, a major newspaper in Pakistan affiliated with The International New York Times. Dr. Siddiqi has received several awards and fellowships including the Amelia Earhart Fellowship (2000-01), Richard D. DuPont Fellowship (2003-04), and the inaugural Rene H. Miller Prize (awarded annually for outstanding research) in Systems Engineering (2006). She is also a member of Pi Tau Sigma, and Tau Beta Pi (the national Engineering Honor Society).

Prior to her research career, she worked full-time as an engineer in the R&D division of National Instruments on the company’s flagship product, LabVIEWTM, in Austin, Texas. She has also worked in Schlumberger (oil and gas services company) in Houston, Texas and has consulted with several corporations such as BP, Lockheed Martin, and Aurora Flight Systems.

Eun Suk SUH

Dr. Eun Suk SUH is Assistant Professor of Industrial Engineering at the Seoul National University in Korea. He is a member of the INCOSE Korea Chapter, and also is a member of Editorial Board for the INCOSE Systems Engineering Journal. His research focuses on the complex system properties, system design methodologies and analysis, complex technology infusion, and system lifecycle analysis. His previous industrial experience includes his tenure at Xerox Corporation as a research scientist and working as a chassis design engineer at Hyundai Motor Company’s Commercial Vehicle Development Division. He earned a PhD in Engineering Systems from MIT, a Masters of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Cornell University and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Clarkson University. Dr. SUH currently holds 25 international patents, and is author of numerous academic publications.

Fei Yue WANG

Prof. Fei-Yue Wang is the Director of the Laboratory and the Founding Director of the Intelligent Control and Systems Engineering Center at CASIA. He is also a Professor of Systems and Industrial Engineering at the University of Arizona, USA. His main research interest is in modeling, analysis, and control of complex systems and has published over 200 books, book chapters, journal papers, conference proceedings and technical reports in mechanics, intelligent control, robotics and automation. Currently, Dr. Wang is the Secretary-Elect of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Council, members of the ExCom and AdCom of IEEE ITS Council and IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Society, associate editors of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, SMC, and ITS, and the Editor-in-Charge of the World Scientific Series on Intelligent Control and Intelligent Automation.

Erik WILHELM

Erik WILHELM is an assistant professor in the Engineering Product Development Pillar at SUTD. His research has focused on three key aspects of transportation technology; namely, the design and optimization of advanced vehicle powertrains, the socio-economic impacts of automobiles, and networked intelligent transportation systems.

Many of his scientific contributions were in developing and applying novel simulation, optimization, and decision-making methodologies to solve problems relating to hybrid control and lightweighting technology. Additionally, he recently built a scalable web-based platform with broad applicability in transportation policy and decision making. He earned his PhD from the ETH-Zurich with the Technology Assessment group at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Kris WOOD

After completing his doctoral work, Dr Wood joined the faculty at the University of Texas in September 1989 and established a computational and experimental laboratory for research in engineering design and manufacturing, in addition to a teaching laboratory for prototyping, reverse engineering measurements, and testing. During the 1997-98 academic year, Dr Wood was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Air Force Academy where he worked with USAFA faculty to create design curricula and research within the Engineering Mechanics / Mechanical Engineering Department. Through 2011, Dr Wood was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Design & Manufacturing Division at The University of Texas at Austin. He was a National Science Foundation Young Investigator, the “Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor in Engineering”, “University Distinguished Teaching Professor”, and the Director of the Manufacturing and Design Laboratory (MaDLab) and MORPH Laboratory.

Dr Wood has published more than 300 commentaries, refereed articles and books, and has received three ASME Best Research Paper Awards, two ASEE Best Paper Awards, an ICED Best Research Paper Award, the Keck Foundation Award for Excellence in Engineering Education, the ASEE Fred Merryfield Design Award, the NSPE AT&T Award for Excellence in Engineering Education, the ASME Curriculum Innovation Award, the Engineering Foundation Faculty Excellence Award, the Lockheed Martin Teaching Excellence Award, the Maxine and Jack Zarrow Teaching Innovation Award, the Academy of University Distinguished Teaching Professors’ Award, and the Regents’ Outstanding Teacher Award. Of particular note are Dr Wood’s published books in design, including “Product Design: Techniques in Reverse Engineering and New Product Development” with Dr K. Otto and “Tools for Innovation” with Dr A. Markman.

Maria YANG

Professor Maria C. YANG is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor YANG earned her SB in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and her MS and PhD from Stanford University’s Mechanical Engineering Department, Design Division. She joined the MIT faculty in 2007. Previous to that, she was an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California, and before that a postdoctoral instructor of design in the mechanical engineering department of the California Institute of Technology. She has been a lecturer in design at Stanford University. Professor YANG’s industrial experience includes serving as Director of Design at Reactivity, Inc., a Silicon Valley software company now a part of Cisco Systems. She has done research into collaborative design tools at Apple Computer and Lockheed. In addition, she has explored the user interaction issues for software design, as well as ergonomics issues of force-feedback devices for Immersion Corporation. Professor Yang’s research and teaching interests are in design of products and systems.