Systems Engineering

Field Description

A master of engineering (M.Eng.) is offered by the College of Engineering.

Contemporary challenges are marked by a level of systemic complexity that defies narrow, discipline-specific interpretation. When problems are examined solely through isolated disciplinary lenses, knowledge becomes fragmented even though the real world functions as an integrated whole. Applying such partial insights to multifaceted contexts invites unintended consequences. Classical analytic approaches — rooted in reductionism and linear causality — prove inadequate for capturing the nonlinear feedback loops, emergent behaviors, and adaptive dynamics that characterize modern systems. Accordingly, systems engineering has emerged as a research field committed to cultivating holistic understanding grounded in interconnectedness — perspectives inaccessible from any single specialty. Researchers in the systems engineering field strive to collaborate across diverse technical and social domains, cocreating and advancing integrative methodologies and rigorous inquiry capable of illuminating complex phenomena and informing robust solutions to technological and societal challenges.

Contact Information

Website: http://www.systemseng.cornell.edu
Email: systemseng@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-4756

606 Rhodes Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853

Data and Statistics

Field Manual

Subject and Degrees

Systems

Concentrations by Subject

Systems

  • Systems Engineering

Faculty

C. Lindsay Anderson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: renewable energy integration

Ken Birman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering

Anastasia Sergeyevna Bizyaeva

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Collective intelligence in biological and social systems, autonomous and artificially intelligent behavior in engineered teams, dynamical systems and control theory, data-driven modeling of complex systems, multi-agent control and swarm autonomy, biologically inspired systems engineering, machine learning analysis through dynamical systems and control theory, and interdisciplinary collaboration across biology, social psychology, and robotics.

Mark Campbell

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: space systems; estimation and control; autonomy in aerospace systems; controlled structures

Michael Timothy Charles

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: system dynamic modeling, techno-ecological system design, sustainable engineering, community-based design

Ricardo Alvarez Daziano

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Statistics and Machine Learning, Transportation, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, and Transportation Systems Engineering

Sarah A Dean

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Theory of Computing.

Timur Kamil Dogan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Architectural Design, Sustainability, Building Energy Modeling, and Computational Design

Christopher J. Earls

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence

Gregory Joseph Falco

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Satellite Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Statistics and Machine Learning, Robotics and Autonomy, Systems and Networking, Space Science and Engineering, Infrastructure Systems, Remote Sensing, Signal and Image Processing, Information Theory and Communications, Optical Physics, Cloud and Distributed Computing

Stefano Galelli

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Dr. Galelli’s research interests lie on the interactions between critical infrastructure systems and the natural environment. In particular, Dr. Galelli is interested in (1) characterizing how hydro-climatic variability cascades across interconnected water-energy infrastructures and (2) providing adaptive, robust, and scalable management solutions that balance reliability, resilience, and sustainability. To reach this goal, his lab advances and combines elements of process-based modelling, climatology, statistical learning, control theory, and optimization. More details can be found on the Critical Infrastructure Systems Lab website linked below.

H. Oliver Gao

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: systems engineering

Raymond Richard Geddes

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: research studies policies focused on the delivery of infrastructure projects in the transportation, water and energy sectors

Allison Godwin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Allison Godwin’s research focuses on changing the culture of engineering through research to make the discipline more inclusive of all types of people from K-12 through higher education and into engineering industry. She investigates how diverse people develop identities as engineers and how their multiple identities—including gender, race/ethnicity, among others—impact their inclusion, recruitment, persistence, and career trajectories. Identity in a particular role, like engineering, emphasizes that how students make sense of what it means to be a professional within their field can reveal information about how they understand who they are in the world, whom they can become, and if they belong. She conducts mixed methods research, which includes large-scale quantitative studies and “small n” qualitative studies through surveys, interventions, interviews, focus groups, and other data collection techniques. Using both of these data streams provides the ability to understand general trends as well as rich and nuanced findings from individual’s lived experiences. Professor Godwin has developed and tested effective pedagogies in an introductory chemical engineering course to reduce high failure rates and strengthen students’ motivation. This work has had direct impact on student retention and success rates at Purdue University. She is studying how low-cost, low-effort classroom interventions can address equity gaps in academic performance in first and second-year engineering courses. Professor Godwin has also worked with emerging engineering education scholars to promote engineering education development in methods, publications, and CAREER grant applications.

David Alan Goldberg

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Algorithms, Data Science, Applied Probability, Statistics and Machine Learning

Jillian L Goldfarb

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Sustainable energy, Integration of lab data, Public policy and Computational models

Miguel I. Gomez

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Applied Economics, Food and Agricultural Economics, Food Industry Management, Marketing

Felix Korbinian Heisel

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Adaptive reuse, Architectural design, Alternative materials, Circular economies, Collaborative practice, Housing, Informal design, Informality design, Material practice, Reuse and recycling, Sustainability, Urban Mining, Urbanism

Shane G. Henderson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Health Systems, Transportation, Applied Probability, Information Technology Modeling, Optimization, COVID-19 Related Research

Adrian Lewis

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: algorithms; optimization

Mark E. Lewis

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Applied Probability, Networks, Supply Chain, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Statistics and Machine Learning, Health Systems

Andreas Malikopoulos

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Cyber-Physical Systems, Optimization, Control Theory, Stochastic Systems, Resource Allocation, Learning and Control, Energy Systems, Smart Cities, Sustainable Mobility

Jacob Paul Mays

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Energy Systems, Environmental and Water Resources Systems Engineering, Infrastructure Systems, Sustainable Energy Systems, Optimization, Market Design

Andreea Minca

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Applied Probability, Networks, COVID-19 Related Research, Financial Engineering

Andrew C Myers

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: computer security; software engineering

Linda K Nozick

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Algorithms, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Natural Hazards, Energy and the Environment, Data Mining, Scientific Computing, Statistics and Machine Learning, Systems and Networking, Transportation, Transportation Systems Engineering

Cara Mae Nunez

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Robotics, haptics, and human-centered design for medical applications, human-machine interaction, augmented and virtual reality, and STEM education, among others.

Francesca Parise

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Systems and Networking, Algorithms, Statistics and Machine Learning, Systems and Synthetic Biology, Information Theory and Communications, Information, Networks, and Decision Systems

Mason A. Peck

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Satellite Systems, Algorithms, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Sensors and Actuators, Signal and Image Processing, Robotics and Autonomy, Space Science and Engineering, Remote Sensing

Jamol J. Pender

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: non-stationary queues; non-stationary Markov processes; financial engineering

Yifan Peng

  • Campus: Weill Cornell Medicine
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Biomedical / Clinical Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning for Healthcare, and Biomedical Image Processing

Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Robotics and Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence, Sensors and Actuators, Rapid Prototyping, Computer Architecture, Computer Engineering

Patrick M. Reed

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Water Systems, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Computing, Infrastructure Systems, Environmental and Water Resources Systems Engineering

Samitha Samaranayake

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: analysis and control of networked cyber-physical systems; urban transportation systems; urban infrastructure

Fred Barry Schneider

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Ethics, Law and Policy, Tech and the law, Programming Languages, Security, Software Engineering, Systems + Networking

David R. Schneider

  • Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: systems control

Bart Selman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Computer Science, fast reasoning methods, multi-agent systems, integration of learning and reasoning techniques, analysis of large linked networks, planning

Robert Shepherd

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Robotics and Autonomy, Materials Design, Advanced Manufacturing and Materials

Semida Silveira

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: energy systems planning, energy transition, energy for sustainable development

Vivek Srikrishnan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Environmental Risk, Resilience, Climate Adaptation, Flood Risk Management, Energy Systems, Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

Alexandra Coso Strong

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Engineering Education, Diversity & Inclusion in STEM, Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration, Educational Systems Design, Equity in Engineering

Jennifer J. Sun

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Vision.

Charlle Lee Sy

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Robust Optimization, Systems Thinking, and Environmental Sustainability

Jefferson W. Tester

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Energy materials, Sustainable Energy, Systems, Transport, Statistical Mechanics and Molecular Simulation

Lang Tong

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Information Theory and Communications, Complex Systems, Network Science and Computation, Energy Systems, Signal and Image Processing, Energy and the Environment, Systems and Networking, Information, Networks, and Decision Systems

Huseyin Topaloglu

  • Campus: Cornell Tech (NYC)
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Algorithms, Transportation, Transportation Systems Engineering, Optimization, Supply Chain

Hakim Weatherspoon

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Information systems

Clifford Alan Whitcomb

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Digital Engineering, Model-Based Systems Engineering, Engineering Leadership, Multidisciplinary Design Optimization, Decision-Making, Six Sigma & Design, Naval Engineering, Submarine & Surface Ship Design, Propulsion Systems, Electric Power Systems

Fengqi You

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Biofuels, Carbon Footprint, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Computation And Modeling, Computational Sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Energy, Energy Systems., Energy Transitions, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Geothermal, Life Cycle Assessment, Machine Learning, One Health, Renewable Energy, Solar Energy, Sustainable Agriculture And Food Systems, Water Management

Rana Sagha Zadeh

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Human-Centered Design, Systems Approach to Healthcare, Palliative Design, Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Interventions, Medication Adherence, Evidence-Based Healthcare Design, Policy and Environmental Interventions, User-Centered Entrepreneurship in Healthcare

Yiye Zhang

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Systems: Systems Engineering
  • Research Interests: Health Systems, Machine Learning, Data Mining, Healthcare Information Technology, Clinical Decision Support