First group of Systems Ph.D. students pass Qualifying Exams

The Systems Engineering program began in 1988 encouraged by strong industrial demand.  It began the next year with a single, team taught, interdisciplinary course.  

Soon thereafter, the program offered a M.Eng. minor in 1999 and then a full-fledged M.Eng. (Systems) degree program in 2001.  At about the same time the program initiated some distance-learning classes.  The distance-learning M.Eng. degree program for practicing engineers in industry and government was approved by New York state to meet industrial and government needs and launched in the fall of 2008.  This very successful distance-learning degree program is unique in that it is exactly the same as the degree as offered on campus, with the same lectures, homework, exams, due dates, etc. It also includes two, one-week, on-campus experiences for the distance-learning students to form a cohort and to prepare to work on project teams remotely.  The M.Eng. (Systems) has been very successful and presently has about 40 on-campus M.Eng. students and about 160 distance-learning M.Eng. students across the US and some foreign countries.

In 2016 the Systems Program received approval from New York state to begin a Ph.D. program.  The first admission cycle was very successful, finding funding for 10 outstanding students enrolled in the inaugural cohort.  This summer five of those initial 10 students progressed far enough to take the Admissions to Candidacy examination (Q-exam).  All of them passed the examinations based on their strong records in academic performance and initial research efforts.  The remaining members of the cohort are still completing some required classes and are expected to be taking the Q-exam this January 2019.

Faisal Alkaabneh, is a four-year Systems Ph.D student and his primary research interests lie in the applications of operations research to food supply chain systems and humanitarian logistics. Faisal interned (2018) with WalMart.com as data scientist focusing on developing an optimization framework to determine allocation strategies to optimize placement of inventory of non-sort items across fulfillment centers (FCs) while maintaining balanced network utilization at peak. He received his undergraduate degree from University of Jordan and M.S. from Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. Faisal enjoys playing online games, and has completed four half marathons so far.
 
Jose Barreiros, is second-year Ph.D. student at Cornell in Systems working at the Organic Robotics Laboratory. His interest are in robotic systems converges in the intersection of computer science, electrical, and mechanical engineering. Jose is particularly interested in complexity in soft robots and how the creation of robots that can feel and actuate as living beings would lead to the emergence of complex behaviors and why not intelligence.  Jose received his master’s degree in systems engineering at Cornell focused on product development and human centered design and bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and control from Escuela Politécnica Nacional.  He enjoys weightlifting and chocolate making.
 
Ronan Keane joined the Systems Ph.D. program in 2017, as part of the inaugural Ph.D. degree program. Ronan’s research interests lie at the intersection of mathematical modeling, dynamical systems, and transportation systems application. Ronan’s research also focuses on developing new methodology for traffic microsimulation, and seeks to exploit relatively recent developments in data science. He holds a B.S. in applied math from Kent State University, M.S. in applied math from the University of Washington, Seattle. His hobbies include cooking, music (piano/saxophone), video games, podcasts and YouTube.
 
Shipu, is a second-year Systems Ph.D student and is advised by Fengqi You. Shipu Zhao received his B.A. in economics and B.E. in civil engineering from Tsinghua University. Shipu’s research area focus on stochastic optimization.

Filipe Manuel Dos Santos Lopes Pereira is a second-year Systems Ph.D. student and native to Portugal. His current research interests are on the development of new global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) architectures, in a framework integrating model-based systems engineering (MBSE), tradespace exploration, system dynamics and machine learning. Prior to coming to Cornell University, he worked for 10 years at the European Space Agency (ESA) in GNSS orbit determination and flight operations for ESA’s ROSETTA mission. His hobbies include going to u-pick farms and parks with his wife and daughter, playing soccer and piano.
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