We are proud to announce our impact report for the 2021-2022 academic year. As we move forward, Systems Engineering will continue to strive and follow the 2030 model approach for BU as created by the Provost’s office, striving for excellence in maintaining and creating: a vibrant academic experience; cutting-edge research that matters; diversity, equity and inclusion; community, big yet small; and global engagement. These tenets make up the vision of the Division for this decade.
From 2021-2022, Systems Engineering grew to 19 appointed faculty members, with home departments spanning the College of Engineering, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Questrom School of Business, and the Medical School.
Our PhD enrollment is currently at 41 students, along with 13 students in the MS program and 7 in the MEng program. There were 5 PhD degrees awarded last year, along with 13 MS and 4 MEng degrees. The Division continues to provide full financial support to all admitted PhD students through fellowships, while our continuing PhD students remain fully-funded from research grants received by participating and affiliated faculty. This year, our total sponsor commitment for active grants was approximately $35 Million.
The Division has enjoyed one of its most productive years in terms of scholarship. We remain committed to world-class
interdisciplinary research activities in our primary concentration areas: Automation, Robotics and Control; Communications and Networking; Computational Biology; Information Sciences; and Production, Service and Energy Systems. In partnership with the Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE), we continue to engage in exciting collaborative projects that involve faculty from different colleges and departments at BU, consistent with the College of Engineering’s commitment to promote a convergent approach for tackling complex scientific and societal challenges.
As we transition into the 2022-23 academic year, I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of all Division faculty, staff, and students who continue to pursue the Division’s research and educational mission.
Head of Systems Engineering Division: Professor Christos Cassandras P.3Rather than focus on specific application areas, the SE curriculum offers a holistic view of the field: a fundamental sciencebased education applicable to all aspects of modeling, analysis, simulation, control, optimization and management of complex systems. The Division cuts across numerous departments at BU to provide a well-rounded perspective of the environment in which a system is housed. A graduate education in systems engineering encompasses skill sets based on areas such as mechanics, biology, business management, statistics, control, optimization, and data science. Graduates are equipped with unique skills to adapt to a variety of domains.
Our new entering cohort of students includes 9 PhD students and 10 Master’s students. The rate acceptance rate for this entering class was 18%.
Students in Systems Engineering are encouraged to branch out and take on summer internships related to their doctoral research. Last year, these were some of the companies that our students spent time working at during their internships.
AHMAD AHMAD, Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL)
SUHAIL HASAN HAEL ALSALEHI, Bain & Company
SAMAD AMINI, Massachusetts General Hospital, Philips
MAHROO BAHREINIAN, iRobot
ANDRES CHAVEZ ARMIJOS, MathWorks
Advanced Research and Technology Office
KASRA GHASEMI, Bain & Company
VITTORIO GIAMMARINO, Pickle Robot
NASSER HASHEMI, Inari Agriculture
YE LIN, Barclays Investment Bank
SAEED MOHAMMADZADEH, Wayfair
JAMES QUEENEY, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
SHAHABEDDIN SOTUDIAN, Best Buy
SALOMÓN WOLLENSTEIN BETECH, Amazon
ZAHRA ZAD, Merck
RUI LIU, Advised by A.Olshevsky, 2022 CISE Best Student Paper Award, BU CISE, April 29, 2022
YE LIN, Advised by S. Andersson, 2021 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) Student Scholarship, Anitab.org
WEI XIAO, Advised by C. Cassandras & C. Belta, SE Outstanding dissertation award, 2022
ADITYA GANGRADE, Advised by B. Nazer & V. Saligrama, Outstanding reviewer award at NeurIPS 2021 and ICLR 2021.
ADITYA GANGRADE, Advised by B. Nazer & V. Saligrama, SE Outstanding dissertation award, 2022
JAMES QUEENEY, Advised by I. Paschalidis & C. Cassandras, Best Student Paper Award Finalist, Boston University Center for Information & Systems Engineering; Best Presenter Award, Boston University Center for Information & Systems Engineering Graduate Student Workshop 8.0
ERIC WENDEL, Advised by J. Baillieul, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Continuing Draper Scholar, May 2022.
The Center for Information & Systems Engineering (CISE) serves the College of Engineering and Boston University through activities designed to deepen and broaden interdisciplinary research in the study and design of intelligent systems with broad societal applications. CISE activities are designed to catalyze and support cross-disciplinary faculty research collaborations, advance scientific understanding and discovery, facilitate engagement with industry, and support a diverse community of faculty and students. In conjunction with this core mission, CISE spearheads a number of activities to project the College of Engineering’s and BU’s strength in information and systems engineering, both internally and externally.
Fifty-one affiliated faculty, across three colleges and nine departments, engage in cutting-edge research collaborations to develop new methods, discover fundamental principles, and design systems and algorithms that impact a plethora of application domains.
Community Activities
• Annual CISE Graduate Student Workshop (CGSW 8.0), April 15, 2022
• Annual CISE Graduate Student Best Paper Competition
• Grace Hopper Celebration, Sponsored five students
• CISE/MSE/SE International Students and Scholars Office Workshop
• Presentation/CV Workshops
• Internship and Employment Opportunities
• Community Building activities: Welcome Back (September), Halloween (October), MSE/SE/CISE Thanksgiving lunch, December Holiday Brunch (December), Chinese New Year, Valentines, Nowruz, Cinco de Mayo, Mediterranean Day, CISE/SE End of Year events.
DR. TODD MURPHEY
Northwestern University
Control Principles for Robot Learning
DR. MINGYI HONG
University of Minnesota
Towards Efficient, Versatile, And Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning
DR. ALEXEY MIROSHNIKOV
Discover Financial Services
Wasserstein-based Fairness
Interpretability Framework For Machine Learning Outcomes
AI IN HEALTHCARE: MITIGATING DISPARITIES,BIASES & MISINFORMATION
Virtual symposium hosted by the Hariri Institute for Computing and co-sponsored with BU School of Public Health
SALOMÓN WOLLENSTEIN-BETECH
Boston University, SE PhD Candidate CISE LUNCH & LEARN
DR. ARCHANA VENKATARAMAN
Johns Hopkins University BridgingtheGapBetweenAIand ClinicalNeuroscienceviaDeepGenerative Fusion Models
DR. DIMITRA PANAGOU University of Michigan
Fixed-Time Control Barrier Functions forSafety-CriticalControlApplications inthePresenceofUncertainty
DR. CHUCHU FAN
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BuildingDependableAutonomous SystemsthroughLearningCertified Decisions and Control
DR. ANDREAS MALIKOPOULOS
University of Delaware
SeparationofLearningandControlfor Cyber-PhysicalSystems
DR. ROGERIO SCHMIDT FERIS
MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
DynamicNeuralNetworksforEfficient MultimodalVideoUnderstanding
DR. RAYADURGAM SRIKANT University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
The Role of Lookahead and ApproximatePolicyEvaluationinPolicy Iteration with LinearValue Function Approximation
DR. RAY CHOWDHURY
Boston University
OnlineReinforcementLearningin LargeandStructuredEnvironments
CISE affiliated students, including SE students
Salomon
WollensteinBetech (PhD candidate SE) and Mahroo
Bahrenian (PhD Candidate)
organized the 8th CISE Graduate Student Workshop (CGSW 9.0) where 18 students shared their research and vied for Best Presenter awards. Jimmy Queeney (PhD Candidate SE) received the CGSW 8.0 Best Presenter award for his research presentation on “Stable and Efficient Reinforcement Learning with Principled Sample Reuse.”
The CISE Graduate Student Workshop (CGSW) is an annual forum that provides students the opportunity to share their original research and hone their communication skills in an engaging, collaborative environment. Organized by students, for students, the day-long event encourages interdisciplinary sharing among affiliated students, faculty, and invited guest speakers across diverse application areas.
DR. CHRISTINE ALLENBLANCHETTE Princeton University
LeveragingDatasetStructurefor Neural Network Prediction
DR. TAN
Northeastern University
ConstructingCertifiedNeural Networks
DR. CLAYTON SCOTT University of Michigan
ClusteringfromPairedObservations
DR. AKSHAY KRISHNAMURTHY
Microsoft
RepresentationLearning,Exploration, andReinforcementLearning
DR. KEVIN JAMIESON University of Washington InstanceDependentSample
ComplexityBoundsforInteractive Learning
DR. FRANCESCA PARISE
Cornell University
Tractable Network Interventions For LargeSocio-TechnicalSystems
DR. FURKAN ERCAN WISE-Circuits Labs
HighThroughput,LowPower,or EnergyEfficiency?HowtoAchieveAll for5GPolarCodes,andBeyond
CISE BEST STUDENT PAPER PRESENTATIONS
Rui Liu (SE PhD candidate); Anthony Byrne (ECE PhD candidate);
Here is the funding breakdown from the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Our research was supported by the following: the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, various non-profit and industry organizations all totaling 35 million dollars in funding for research in the Division.
DR. THEODORA CHASPARI Texas A&M University
Human-CenteredMachineIntelligence: FromRobustSignalAnalyticsto TrustworthyHuman-Technology Partnership
DR. NATHAN KALLUS
Cornell University
Smooth Contextual Bandits
DR. GIRISH N. NAIR WITH PHD STUDENT MAXWELL VARLEY University of Melbourne, Australia
JointEntropyandKalmanFilteringin Localization
Salomon Wollenstein-Betech (SE PhD candidate); Alexander Bulekov (ECE PhD candidate)
The Boston University Robotics and Autonomous Systems Technology and Innovation Center (BU RASTIC) is a new convergent entity that focuses on the development of advanced robotics and autonomous systems. BU RASTIC will facilitate hands-on training for our students specializing in robotics, autonomous vehicles, computer vision, machine learning, control systems, and other related fields.
The center will provide a platform for researchers, students, and industry professionals to collaborate on cutting-edge technologies in robotics and autonomous systems. It will also offer advanced state-of-the-art labs, testing platforms, and equipment to support research and development experience in these areas.
Funding for RASTIC includes $4.4M from the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) and $4.4M matching funds from Boston University with the goal of developing the next-generation workforce in robotics and autonomous systems.
“Francesco Orabona, ENG Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering [an affiliate of Systems Engineering], bridges the mathematical foundations of learning theory and data science with applications to scientific, societal, and real-world engineering problems. His efforts have led to the development of autonomous online learning algorithms that require minimal human supervision—first-of-its-kind work that is now part of Microsoft’s machine learning tool kit. The past recipient of a Google Research Award, he is a Data Science Faculty Research Fellow at BU’s Hariri Institute and a founding faculty member of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences. Last year, he served as senior area chair at the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Conference on Artificial Intelligence. He has published five book chapters and more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles.”
“I am working on several projects with a main theme ‘control for multiagent systems with Spatio-temporal specifications’. In these projects, I often use control, machine learning, and formal methods tools that I learned in classes.
The first project focuses on controlling multiple robots to get from an initial point to a final point and achieve prespecified spatial configurations. This project was a collaboration with a colleague from the lab and a Professor from TU Wien.
Another project (and this is my personal favorite) is a collaboration between MIT, BU, and Georgia Tech. The project aims at creating a framework for ‘Simulationbased Organoid Synthesis’. Simply put, we want to find out a way to determine ideal parameters to create organoids (small organs) in a lab setting.”
-Excerpt from BU Today
- Suhail AlsalehiIt takes a lot of time—and money—to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. After running lengthy inperson neuropsychological exams, clinicians have to transcribe, review, and analyze every response in detail. But researchers at Boston University have developed a new tool that could automate the process and, eventually, allow it to move online. Their machine learning–powered computational model can detect cognitive impairment from audio recordings of neuropsychological tests—no in-person appointment needed. Their findings were published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
As we age, the likelihood of falling and getting injured increases. But what if we could prevent these accidents from happening? Roberto Tron is working on preventing injuries by monitoring mobility through cameras, sensors, machine learning, and estimation algorithms from robotics. His work also focuses on automatic controls and robotics, with a particular interest in geometrical problems.
Professor Wenchao Li (ECE) leads the Dependable Computing Laboratory at Boston University where he and his team are addressing the challenges presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The researchers have developed a combination of computational proof methods (a.k.a. formal methods) and machine learning techniques to make AI systems more trustworthy.
To try to improve the chances of having a baby, Hariri Institute Research Fellow Yannis Paschalidis and an interdisciplinary team of medical researchers, including Lauren Wise at the BU School of Public Health and Shruthi Mahalingaiah at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, used machine learning to create models that can predict the success of IVF procedures and natural pregnancies.
Sean Andersson
bu.edu/anderssonlab
The lab explores the dynamics in nanometerscale systems with fundamental theory, applied mathematics, and physical experiments. The work applies to nanobioscience, nanotechnology, and robotics.
Michael Gevelber
bu.edu/pcl
The lab applies a controlsbased approach to integrate process modeling, sensor development, system and control design and experimentation.
Christos Cassandras
christosgcassandras.org/codes
The lab conducts research on modeling, design, analysis, performance evaluation, control and optimization of a variety of discrete events and hybrid systems.
Venkatesh Saligrama sites.bu.edu/data/
Projects related to vision and learning, decision and control machine learning and structured signal processing.
Wenchao Li
sites.bu.edu/depend/
The research spans dependable computing, particularly the development of computational proof methods and machine learning techniques to aid the construction of safe, reliable and secure systems.
Calin Belta sites.bu.edu/hyness
The lab is focused on integrating algorithms and machine learning to make robots smarter and more autonomous.
LABORATORY
C. Cassandras, D. Castañón, W. Karl, B. Kulis, W. Li, T. Little, P. Ishwar, B. Nazer, A. Olshevsky, I. Paschalidis, V. Saligrama, D. Starobinski, A. Trachtenberg bu.edu/iss
The lab designs and synthesizes secure networked systems for optimum decisionmaking and control.
LABORATORY
J. Baillieul, S. Andersson, H. Wang bu.edu/iml
Projects explore limited-bandwidth control problems, cooperative systems and control, symbolic control and animal-inspired agile flight control.
D. Starobinski, A.Trachtenberg nislab.bu.edu
The lab offers a perspective on modern networking with emphasis on scalability, heterogeneity and performance.
W. Clem Karl
mdsp.bu.edu
The lab applies computational imaging to develop statistical models to extract information from diverse and vulnerable data sources.
Thomas Little
hulk.bu.edu
Projects focus on ubiquitous distributed computing, specifically in the area of distributed multimedia information systems emphasizing time-dependent and continuous media data.
A. Bestavros, M. Crovella, A. Matta bu.edu/cs/nrg/ Research encompasses network measurement, architectures and protocols. Projects span from the design and implementation to the analysis of networked applications and systems.
Francesco Orabona sites.google.com/view/optimal-lab/
The lab explores the research topic at the intersection between machine learning and optimization, with emphasis on adaptive and parameter-free methods.
Ioannis Paschalidis sites.bu.edu/paschalidis/ Research deals with fundamental problems in the fields of optimization, control, stochastic systems and data science.
Lev Levitin
bu.edu/reliable
Projects span from the design of computer chips to efficiency testing in hardware, software, signal processing and networks.
C. Belta & S. Andersson, J. Baillieul, C. Cassandras, R. Tron sites.bu.edu/robotics
Research spans several areas of robotics, including motion planning, control, machine learning and computer vision.
Avrum Spira
bumc.bu.edu/compbiomed/labs/spiralenburg
The lab utilizes post-genomic technologies and computational tools to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of lung disease.
LABORATORY
Sandor Vajda
vajdalab.org
The lab focuses on the recognition of proteins and small molecules by protein receptors. The work applies to metabolic control, signal transduction, gene regulation, rational drug and vaccine design.
J. Konrad, P. Ishwar vip.bu.edu/
Projects relate to technology transfer in the broad areas of image, video and multimedia processing. This visual information processing research applies to visual surveillance, 3D video and human-computer interfaces.
In May 2022, Elizabeth Flagg, Division Director, received the first College of Engineering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion award, given to a faculty or staff member who has done an extraordinary job at addressing and improving diversity and a culture of inclusion and equity throughout the college. Elizabeth was recognized for the creation of the Division Wellbeing Room, a space for the BU community to use for telehealth, 2-person meetings, and lactation, and for her support of women in STEM, first-generation, and underrepresented students.
The Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE) and the Division of Systems Engineering (SE) sponsored five students to represent the College of Engineering at the Grace Hopper Celebration. The event aims to nurture the research and career paths of women finding inspiration in its annual commemoration of Grace Murray Hopper (1906 – 1992), a pioneer in the field of computer programming and systems engineering, whose many achievements include inventing the first computer language compiler, which was later incorporated into COBOL. CISE students had the opportunity to network, increase visibility in their respective disciplines, engage in discourse with prominent professionals in diverse science, research and technology disciplines.
SE partners with Tsinghua University in Beijing for a dual master’s degree program in Systems Engineering. Students are selected from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University to enroll in BU’s courses for two semesters. Afterwards, they return to Tsinghua University to complete the program. US News & World Report ranks partner Tsinghua University as one of the top global engineering programs.
Our programs are made up of almost 1/3 women. According to the Society of Women Engineers, 13% of engineers are women.
Globally, 88% of our PhD students are international students coming from almost every continent to study in the Division.
SEAN ANDERSSON
Professor of ME & SE
Robotics, control theory, scanning probe microscopy, single molecule tracking
PhD, University of Maryland, 2003
NSF CAREER Award, 2009
PANAGIOTIS ANDRIANESIS
Research Associate Professor SE
Electricity distribution network economics – aiming at developing, evaluating, and transferring to practice a robust framework for the future electricity distribution grid.
PhD, University of Thessaly, Greece
BU Institute for Sustainable Energy, Senior Fellow
JOHN BAILLIEUL
Distinguished Professor of ME, ECE & SE
Robotics, control of mechanical systems, mathematical system theory, information-based control theory
PhD, Harvard University, 1975
IEEE, IFAC & SIAM Fellow
CALIN BELTA
Professor of ME, ECE, Bioinformatics & SE
Verification/ control of dynamical systems, hybrid systems, symbolic control, robot motion planning/ control, gene/ metabolic networks
PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2003
IEEE Fellow
MICHAEL CARAMANIS
Professor of ME & SE
Mathematical programming, control and stochastic systems
PhD, Harvard University, 1976
CHRISTOS CASSANDRAS
Distinguished Professor of ECE & SE
Head of Division of Systems Engineering
Discrete event/ hybrid systems, stochastic optimization, simulation, manufacturing systems, communication/ sensor networks, multi-agent systems
PhD, Harvard University, 1982
IEEE & IFAC Fellow
IEEE Control Systems Society President, 2012
DAVID CASTAÑÓN
Professor of ECE & SE
Stochastic control, estimation optimization, image understanding and parallel computation
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1976
IEEE Fellow
IEEE Control Systems Society President, 2008
ASHOK CUTKOSKY
Assistant Professor of ECE, CS & SE
Machine learning, stochastic optimization, online learning
PhD, Stanford University, 2018
PRAKASH ISHWAR
Professor of ECE & SE
Statistical signal processing, machine learning, information theory, secure multi-party computation, visual information processing and analysis
PhD, University of Illinois Urbana, Champaign, 2002
BRIAN KULIS
Associate Professor of ECE & SE
Machine learning, statistics, largescale data analysis
PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 2008
ALEX OLSHEVSKY
Associate Professor of ECE & SE
Control and algorithms for multiagent systems, sensor networks, distributed optimization, control of large-scale systems
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010
FRANCESCO ORABONA
Associate Professor of ECE, SE & CS
Machine learning and optimization
PhD, University of Genoa, 2007
Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award, National Science Foundation (NSF)
IONNIS PASCHALIDIS
Professor of ECE, BME & SE
Director of CISE
Systems and control, networking, applied probability, optimization, operations research, computational biology, medical informatics, bioinformatics.
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996
IEEE Fellow; IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems Founding Editor-in-Chief
JAMES PERKINS
Associate Professor of ME & SE
Real-time scheduling and control of manufacturing systems, supply chain management, resource pricing and congestion control in communications networks
PhD, University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign, 1993
VENKATESH SALIGRAMA
Professor of ECE & SE
Machine learning, computer vision, information theory, and statistical signal processing
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997
IEEE Fellow
DAVID STAROBINSKI
Professor of ECE & SE
Wireless and vehicular networks; QOS and traffic engineering; network economics; cybersecurity
PhD, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, 1999
ROBERTO TRON
Assistant Professor of ME & SE
Intersection of automatic control, robotics and computer vision, with a particular emphasis on applications of Riemannian geometry and on distributed problems involving teams of multiple agents
PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 2012
2021 Boston University College of Engineering Early Career Research Excellence Award
PIROOZ VAKILI
Research Associate Professor of ME & SE
Monte Carlo simulation, optimization, computational biology, computational finance
PhD, Harvard University, 1989
HUA WANG
Associate Professor of ME & SE
Associate Head of Division of Systems Engineering
Control of nonlinear phenomena, intelligent systems and control, complex networks, cooperative control, robotics, applications in biological, energy and aerospace systems
PhD, University of Maryland at College Park, 1993
AZER BESTAVROS
Professor of CS
Associate Provost for Computing & Data Sciences
Networking, distributed systems, and trustworthy computing research
PhD, Harvard University, 1992
MIKE CROVELLA
Performance evaluation, focused on parallel and networked computer systems, detecting and understanding anomalies in IP networks, efficient network monitoring, network security
PhD, University of Rochester, 1994
MIKE GEVELBER
Associate Professor of ME & MSE
Development of control and sensing systems for electrospinning of nanofibers, plasma spray, ebeam deposition, crystal growth, CVD, and intelligent building HVAC systems
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988
W. CLEM KARL
Professor of ECE & BME
Chairperson of ECE
Computational imaging, detection and estimation, inverse problems, biomedical signal and image processing
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991
ERIC KOLACZYK
Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
Director of Hariri Institute
Statistical modeling of instrumental data in temporal, spatial, and network-indexed contextsPhD, Stanford University, 1994
LEV LEVITIN
Distinguished Professor of ECE
Information theory, physics of communication and computing, complex and organized systems, quantum theory of measurement, reliable communication and computing, bioinformatics
PhD, Gorky University, 1969
WENCHAO LI
Assistant Professor of ECE
AI safety, human cyber physical systems, formal methods, design automation
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2013
THOMAS LITTLE
Professor of ECE
Associate Dean of COE Educational Initiatives
Associate Director NSF Smart Lighting ERC
Computer networking, mobile computing, distributed systems, multimedia streaming and storage, visible light communications
PhD, Syracuse University, 1991
ABRAHAM MATTA
Professor of Computer Science
Chairperson of Computer Science
Design of network protocols and architectures based on a range of computer science principles, mathematical techniques, and performance evaluation tools
PhD, University of Maryland at College Park, 1995
BOBAK NAZER
Associate Professor of ECE
Information theory, communications, signal processing, and neuroscience
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2009
EROL PEKÖZ
Professor of Operations & Technology
Management (OTM)
Chairperson of OTM
Applied probability and statistics, rare events, Stein’s method queuing theory and statistical methods for health care data
PhD, University of California Berkeley, 1995
AVRUM SPIRA
Alexander Graham Bell Professor of Healthcare Entrepreneurship, Chief of the Division of Computational Biomedicine,
Director of Translational Bioinformatics Program
Lung cancer and COPD genomics, smoking and airway gene expression, bioinformatics
MD, McGill University, 1996
ARI TRACHTENBERG
Professor of ECE
Cyber security, algorithms, error-correcting codes
PhD, University of Illinois, 2000
SANDOR VAJDA
Professor of BME & Chemistry
Director of BMERC
Scientific computing, primarily optimization, computational chemistry and biology, including protein and peptide structure determination, protein engineering, and drug design
PhD, Hungarian Academy of Science, 1983
POST-DOC
SAYAK RAY CHOWDHURY
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), 2020
Multi-agent and cyberphysical systems, multi-armed bandit and reinforcement learning algorithms
GRADUATE COMMITTEE
Hua Wang, Chair
Sean Andersson, Calin Belta, Alex Olshevsky, Rebecca Khurshid, Elizabeth Flagg, Christine Ritzkowski
CHRISTOS G. CASSANDRAS
Division Head
HUA WANG
Associate Head
RUTH MASON, RETIRED 1/31/2022
Division Director
ELIZABETH FLAGG, ED.M.
Division Director, 1/3/2022
Graduate Programs Manager, 1/2/2022
CHRISTINE RITZKOWSKI
Graduate Programs Manager, 1/31/2022
Christine Guerard
Communications Manager
ROBOTICS
$8.8M IOANNIS
PASCHALIDIS, SEAN
ANDERSSON win
Massachusetts Technology
Collaborative grant + College of Engineering match to construct a new robotics lab focusing on graduate education at the master’s degree level. See the RASTIC story, inside.
NEUROSCIENCE & NEUROENGINEERING
$7.5 MURI GRANT led by BU Research Team to Create Neuro-Autonomous Robots.
SMART CITIES
.4M CHRISTOS
CASSANDRAS (ECE, SE), Distinguished Professor, will take part in a project to create a global, open research platform where researchers can collaborate to define a link between well-being and ecosmart cities.
CYBER-SECURITY
.2M DAVID STAROBINSKI (ECE, SE) will work on intelligent data synchronization for hybrid clouds.
MACHINE LEARNING
FRANCESCO ORABONA wins
Career Award for work on new machine learning algorithms.
BU DIVISION OF SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
15 St. Mary’s Street, Rm 118 Brookline, MA 02446
se@bu.edu | www.bu.edu/se
Instagram: @busystems
Twitter: @bu_systemseng
