Division of Systems Engineering
The Graduate Program
Admissions
Doctoral Program
Advisors
Qualifying Examinations
Language Requirement
Dissertation
Admission and Financial Aid
Master of Science and Master of Engineering Programs
Master of Science and Master of Engineering Structured Course Requirements
Research Interests of the Faculty
Division Head Christos G. Cassandras, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Division Associate Head Pirooz Vakili, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Division Director Ruth Mason
The Graduate Program
Systems Engineering (SE) cuts across the traditional Engineering departmental structure as a discipline that studies systems—be they electrical, mechanical, chemical, biological, or involving business processes and logistics—through information, decision, and control sciences. The Systems Engineering Program provides a unique graduate curriculum for students with these interests and extensive research opportunities through the interdisciplinary Center for Information & Systems Engineering (CISE) and its industry connections.
Systems Engineering is a cross-disciplinary program, offered by the College of Engineering in cooperation with faculty from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Management. The program integrates courses from Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Management. Students in the program have access to these units’ state-of-the-art computational and experimental facilities.
The Systems Engineering program offers MS, MEng, and PhD degrees. Through coursework, collaborative training projects, and dissertation research, students will learn to apply analytical, computational, and mathematical methods to all aspects of modern technology that require sophisticated modeling and intelligent information processing for design, management, and control. Students will receive instruction in communications and ethics as appropriate to the social impact and implications of Systems Engineering.
Graduates of the Systems Engineering program are equipped with the unique skills to adapt their knowledge and expertise to diverse application domains. These include, among others, automation, robotics and control; communications and networking; computational biology; information sciences; production, service systems and supply chains.
Admissions
Prospective students should have a strong undergraduate background in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination Test. General Graduate Record Examinations Subject Test scores are also accepted; normally, the subject test should be taken in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants whose native language is not English are also required to submit results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Applications may be obtained from, and all materials sent to: Boston University, College of Engineering, Graduate Programs, 48 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215. Applications are also available online at www.bu.edu/eng/grad.
Applications for admission for the fall semester, with or without financial aid consideration, must be submitted by January 15 for domestic applications and December 15 for international applications. The application deadline for spring admission is October 1 for both domestic and international applicants.
Doctoral Program
The Systems Engineering Division offers postbachelor’s and post-master’s PhD degrees. Doctoral studies may be pursued in areas actively researched by division faculty. Students admitted to the postbachelor’s PhD program must complete the course requirements for the MS degree in Systems Engineering. They are required to take a minimum of 64 credits during their program of study. The remaining required PhD credit hours remain unstructured and can be chosen, with advisor approval, to meet an individual student’s academic and research needs.
Postbachelor’s doctoral students will be awarded MS degrees upon completion of the MS degree requirements and the PhD Prospectus Exam.
There are no structured course requirements for post-master’s PhD students, but such students are required to complete 32 credits applicable to the degree, all of which must be at the 500 level or higher. These courses can be chosen, with advisor approval, to meet an individual student’s academic and research needs.
Postbachelor’s and PhD students are required to take a minimum of 16 credits of research/dissertation coursework. Post-master’s PhD students are required to take a minimum of 8 credits of research/dissertation coursework.
Doctoral students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.00 to remain in good academic standing and to graduate. All graduate courses are counted in the GPA. Only grades of “B−” or better fulfill PhD curricular requirements. This requirement applies to post-BS or post-MS PhD students.
Doctoral students must satisfy a residency requirement of at least two consecutive academic-year semesters of full-time graduate study at Boston University. They must demonstrate sufficient competency in mathematics. For further information, contact Professor Pirooz Vakili (vakili@bu.edu).
Advisors
Upon entry into the Systems Engineering Division, each student will be appointed an academic advisor from the SE faculty. The advisor will act as the student’s primary academic advisor until the student selects a research advisor(s).
Qualifying Examinations
Doctoral students must pass a comprehensive Qualifying Examination administered by the Division of Systems Engineering. They must pass this exam within the first three semesters of matriculation (those matriculating in January must pass within the first four semesters). In addition, doctoral students must present an oral defense of a research prospectus developed by the student to a prospectus committee by the student’s third year of study. The prospectus committee may also later serve as the Dissertation Committee.
Language Requirement
There is no foreign language requirement for the Systems Engineering degree. However, basic mastery of spoken and written English as determined by oral presentations, written reports, and publishable manuscripts, is a requirement for the PhD.
Dissertation
The PhD requires original research and presentation in a form suitable for publication in an archival journal. A research advisor guides progress toward the degree. Doctoral students must defend a written dissertation before a Dissertation Committee.
Admission and Financial Aid
PhD graduate students may obtain financial aid in the form of competitive teaching fellowships or research assistantships available from grants or contracts held by faculty members. Annual (12 month) stipends are approximately $27,300. Other traineeship funding may also be available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Master of Science and Master of Engineering Programs
Master of Science students must take 32 credits, 20 of which must be structured courses. The structured course requirements are divided into two groups: Core (3 courses) and Concentration (2 courses). They may be chosen from the list provided below. The remaining required MS credit hours remain unstructured and can be chosen, with advisor approval, to meet an individual student’s academic and research needs.
Master of Science students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.00 to remain in good academic standing and to graduate. All graduate courses are counted in the GPA. Grades of “C–” or lower are not acceptable for the MS degree.
Optional Master’s Thesis: Candidates for the MS in Systems Engineering may elect to write a thesis. Thesis students may enroll in ENG SE 901 for at least 4 but no more than 8 credits toward their MS degree.
Master of Science and Master of Engineering Structured Course Requirements
Core (3 courses)
SE/EC/ME 501 Dynamic Systems Theory, or
SE/EC/ME 710 Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Control
SE/EC 524 Optimization Theory and Methods
SE/ME 714 Advanced Stochastic Modeling and Simulation, or
EC 505 Stochastic Processes, or
EK 500 Probability with Statistical Applications
Concentration (2 courses)
Computational and Systems Biology
BE 505 Molecular Bioengineering I
BE 561 DNA and Protein Sequence Analysis
BE 563 Cellular and Molecular Systems Analysis
BE 567 Nonlinear Dynamics in Biological Systems
BE 571 Dynamics and Evolution of Biological Networks
BE 760 Structural Bioinformatics
BE 777 Computational Genomics I
Control Systems
ME 762 Nonlinear Systems and Control
EC 702 Recursive Estimation and Optimal Filtering
ME/MS 507 Process Modeling and Control
ME 570 Robot Motion Planning
SE/EC/ME 733 Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems
SE 734 Hybrid Systems
SE/ME 740 Vision Robotics and Planning
Network Systems
EC 541 Computer Communication Networks
EC 544 Networking the Physical World
EC 715 Wireless Communications
SE/EC 741 Randomized Network Algorithms
SE/ME 755 Communication Networks Control
EC 744 Mobile Networking and Computing
SE/EC/ME 725 Queuing Systems
Financial Engineering
MA 577 Mathematics of Financial Derivatives
MF 572 Introduction to Mathematical Finance
MF 795 Stochastic Methods of Mathematical Finance
MF 796 Computational Methods of Mathematical Finance
FE 823 Investments
Production and Service Systems
ME 510 Production Systems Analysis
SE/EC/ME 543 Sustainable Power Systems
SE/EC/ME 733 Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems
SE/ME 765 Production System Design
SE/ME 766 Advanced Scheduling Models and Methods
OM 725 Creating Value Through Operations and Technology
OM 854 Supply Chain Management
Operations Research
ME/EC 514 Simulation
SE/EC/ME 710 Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Control
SE/ME 714 Advanced Stochastic Modeling and Simulation
SE/EC/ME 724 Advanced Optimization Theory and Methods
SE/EC/ME 725 Queuing Systems
SE/ME 732 Combinatorial Optimization and Graph Algorithms
SE/EC/ME 733 Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems
SE/ME 766 Advanced Scheduling Models and Methods
Research Interests of the Faculty
Murat Alanyali, PhD: Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Stochastic systems, performance analysis, optimization, game theory and dynamic resource sharing in communication networks and distributed systems.
Sean Andersson, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Robotics, control theory, scanning probe microscopy, symbolic-based control.
John Baillieul, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Robotics, control of mechanical systems, mechatronics information-based control, networked control systems, and analysis of risk in the physical world.
Calin Belta, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Bioinformatics. Hybrid systems, robotics, gene networks, and bacterial metabolism.
Azer Bestavros, PhD: Professor, Computer Science. Scalable internet protocols and systems, networking services, and real-time communication and computation systems.
Michael Caramanis, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Mathematical programming, control of stochastic systems, liberalization of electricity markets and design of market rules.
Christos Cassandras, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Discrete event and hybrid systems, stochastic optimization, simulation, manufacturing systems, communication and sensor networks, transportation systems, and command-control systems.
David Castañón, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Systems theory, stochastic control, automated decision systems for dynamic resource scheduling, pattern recognition, estimation, image understanding, multi-object tracking, combinatorial optimization, parallel and distributed computation.
James Collins, DPhil: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Synthetic biology; systems biology; noise-enhanced sensorimotor function.
Mark Crovella, PhD: Professor, Computer Science. Performance evaluation, focused on parallel and networked computer systems, detecting and understanding anomalies in IP networks, efficient network monitoring, network security.
Pierre Dupont, PhD: Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Robotics, image guidance of minimally invasive surgery.
Michael Gevelber, PhD: Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Improving materials process capabilities using controls-based approach: modeling, sensor development, system and control design, experimental verification; plasma spray, bulk crystal growth, CVD, ebeam deposition of optical coatings; electrospinning of nanofibers.
Jian-Qiang Hu, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Supply chain management, financial decision problems, fluid models for multi-class discrete event dynamic systems, design and performance analysis of WDM optical networks, topology formulation for wireless networks.
Prakash Ishwar, PhD: Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Signal processing, information theory, image and video coding and processing, decision theory, multi-resolution signal analysis, and optimization theory with applications to sensor networks, multimedia-over-wireless, and information security.
W. Clement Karl, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Statistical signal and image processing, geometric-based estimation, medical signal and image processing.
Eric D. Kolaczyk, PhD: Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics. Statistical modeling of instrumental data in temporal, spatial, and network-indexed contexts.
Thomas Little, PhD: Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Wireless sensor networks, mobile ad hoc networking and computing, vehicular networking, distributed systems, multimedia streaming and storage, video-on-demand, ecological applications, opportunistic networking, ambient computing.
Abraham Matta, PhD: Associate Professor, Computer Science. Transport and routing protocols for the Internet and wireless networks; feedback-based control design and analysis; architectures for protocol design and large-scale traffic management; modeling and performance evaluation.
Ioannis Paschalidis, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Systems and control, networking, applied probability, optimization, operations research, computational biology, and bioinformatics. Specific applications of interest include: communication and sensor networks, protein docking, manufacturing systems, and supply chains.
Erol Pekoz, PhD: Associate Professor, Operations & Technology. Control over health care resource allocation is best achieved through the demand side or through regulatory controls on the supply side.
James Perkins, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Real-time scheduling and control of manufacturing systems, supply chain management, resource pricing and congestion control in communications networks, scheduling human resources in transportation systems and in product development.
Venkatesh Saligrama, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Systems theory, information and control, statistical signal processing.
David Starobinski, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Performance evaluation of communication networks, wireless spectrum management, network monitoring, advanced networking for scientific applications.
Ari Trachtenberg, PhD: Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering. Error control codes (LDPC, rateless, identifying), networks (sensor, mobile, wired), algorithms and data structures, security; data synchronization, location detection in harsh environments.
Sandor Vajda, PhD: Professor, Biomedical Engineering. Scientific computing, primarily optimization; computational chemistry and biology, including protein and peptide structure determination, protein engineering, and drug design.
Pirooz Vakili, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Monte Carlo simulation and optimization, stochastic networks, computational finance, risk management, bioinformatics.
Hua Wang, PhD: Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering. Control of nonlinear phenomena and bifurcations.
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