Guru at MIT

J. Kim Vandiver is MIT's Dean for Undergraduate Research, Director of the Edgerton Center and Director of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), which involves 80% of MIT's undergraduate students in research projects with MIT research staff and faculty. In 1992 he founded the Edgerton Center at MIT, which provides resources for MIT students engaged in hands-on educational projects. The Center also runs a K-12 outreach program for local teachers and their classrooms.

Throughout his teaching career, Prof. Vandiver has stressed the importance of hands-on learning. He has worked to enliven the mainstream curriculum, incorporating more and earlier opportunities for students to solve real-life problems, engage in research, and develop relationships with faculty. In 1998 he was the recipient of the MIT President's Award for Community Service for the Edgerton Center's work with the Cambridge Public Schools. In 2001 he was honored as a MacVicar Fellow for excellence in teaching.

A member of the Ocean Engineering Department faculty since 1975, Prof. Vandiver chaired MIT's faculty from 1991 until 1993. His research focuses on the dynamics of offshore structures and flow-induced vibration. He teaches dynamics and mechanical vibration at the graduate and undergraduate level. Prof. Vandiver received his bachelor's degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College of Science and Engineering, his master's degree in Ocean Engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. in Oceanographic Engineering from the MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. He is a Registered Mechanical Engineer in the state of Massachusetts and is an active consultant in structural dynamics with the offshore engineering industry. He is also a certified flight instructor for gliders.

Advising on Consortium Dynamics

Deborah Ancona is the faculty director for the MIT Leadership Center. Ancona is engaged in research examining core leadership capabilities. Another major area of her study is teams, in particular how teams manage both their internal and external dynamics to obtain high performance. Ancona proposes a new structure-"the X-Team"- that allows teams to manage complex tasks while being entrepreneurial. Ancona also examines time and timing in organizations. Her work on "entrainment" and "temporal design" examines how companies organize themselves to better mesh with key rates, cycles, and rhythms in the environment. The author of numerous articles and papers, she most recently published Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (South-Western College Publishing, 3rd ed., 2005), which centers on the skills and processes needed in today's diverse and changing organizations.

Advisor on Student-led Initiatives, Leadership and Product Design

Dr. Crawley received an Sc.D. in Aerospace Structures from MIT in 1981. His early research interests centered on structural dynamics, aeroelasticity, and the development of actively controlled and intelligent structures. Recently, Dr. Crawley’s research has focused on the domain of the architecture and design of complex systems.

Dr. Crawley’s work spans a range from the development of underlying theory, typified by a recent paper on the Algebra of Systems, to the development of methods and tools, such as Object Process Networks. It extends as far as a consulting role on the design of actual systems. Currently he is engaged on both NASA and oil exploration system designs. From 2003 to 2006 he served as the Executive Director of the Cambridge – MIT Institute, a joint venture, funded by the British government and industry, with a mission to understand and generalize how universities act as engines of innovation and economic growth.

Advising on Vehicle Aerodynamics

Advising on Value-Chain Strategy and Automotive in India

Charles Fine focuses on technology supply chains. He examines how to assess the present—and especially the future—profitability and strategic leverage among the various sectors in the supply chain; how to design the supply chain (i.e., determine the boundaries and identity of the organization) based on strategic and logistical assessments; and how to assemble the capability to realize the chosen organizational boundaries and manage within and across those boundaries. He is author of Clockspeed: Winning Industry Control in the Age of Temporary Advantage.

Advisor on Product Design and Changeability

Olivier de Weck was born in Switzerland and holds degrees in industrial engineering from ETH Zurich (1993) and aerospace systems engineering from MIT (2001). Before joining MIT he was a liaison engineer and later engineering program manager on the F/A-18 aircraft program at McDonnell Douglas (1993-1997).

Many engineering systems of the past were designed with only immediate use in mind as well as in relative isolation from broader considerations of context and uncertainty. This has contributed to "lock-in", i.e. the inability to adapt to new circumstances despite better architectures and technologies being known, and has led to some spectacular technical and business failures. Research in changeability acknowledges that systems need to change over time, such as growing in terms of capacity, infusing of new technologies or adaptation to shifting customer needs and regulations. Changeability research traces the evolution and change over time of existing technical systems (such as complex electro-mechanical products, airline networks etc....), formalizes patterns of change propagation and develops methods and tools for finding where and how to embed flexibility in design and how to value such flexibility, e.g. as real options. Commonality is another strategic aspect in engineering design where systems and products are no longer designed as individuals, but the need for customization and efficiency drives considerations of commonality, reuse and platform architectures.

Fred Moavenzadeh's current interests include technology and development with special focus on formulation of technological policies for socio-economic development. He is particularly interested in institutional structures required to develop a viable science and technology infrastructure that could serve the human resource development strategy of newly industrialized nations.

As the director of the Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development from October 1998 to June 2006, he focused on developing an institutional environment at MIT that fostered interdisciplinary research and collaborative efforts between academia, government, and industry.

As director of the Technology and Development Program, he has led numerous collaborative programs in science, technology, and development and is currently assisting with the development of the Masdar Institute, a post-graduate, educational and research institute in Abu Dhabi. In addition, he continues to direct two collaborative programs in Thailand: King Mongkut University of Technology and the National Science Technology Development Agency.

Advisor on Energy and VDS' role at MIT

Ernest J. Moniz is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and the Director of the MIT Energy Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has served on the faculty since 1973. Dr. Moniz served as Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. In that role, he had programmatic oversight responsibility for the offices of Science; Fossil Energy; Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology; Environmental Management; and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. He served as DOE chair of the Laboratory Operations Board and of the Research and Development Council, through which he initiated a portfolio approach to managing and advancing the Department’s R&D programs. He also led a comprehensive review of the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program and served as the Secretary’s special negotiator for Russia initiatives, with a particular focus on the disposition of Russian nuclear weapons materials. Dr. Moniz also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, where his responsibilities spanned the physical, life, and social and behavioral sciences, science education, and university-government partnerships. At MIT, Dr. Moniz served as Head of the Department of Physics and as Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center, a DOE user facility. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy. His current research centers on energy technology and policy studies. He served as co-chair of the MIT Energy Research Council, an interdisciplinary faculty group that advanced the MIT President’s energy initiative. Moniz was appointed Director of the MIT Energy Initiative in 2006.

Advisor on Systems Architecture and Engineering

Dr. Daniel Roos, Japan Steel Industry Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering, currently serves as Director of the MIT Portugal Program, which is a five-year, $40 million initiative focusing on engineering systems. The program involves over 40 MIT faculty from all five schools at MIT.

Dr. Roos was the Founding Director of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division (ESD) from 1998–2004 and serves as Chair of the Engineering Systems University Council, an organization of universities with Engineering Systems programs.

Previous MIT responsibilities for Dr. Roos include serving as Director of the MIT Center for Transportation Studies, and Director of the MIT Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development. Dr. Roos also served as Special Assistant to the MIT Chancellor and Provost, helping to form large-scale industrial and global partnerships. He had a leadership role in partnerships with Ford, Merrill Lynch, and Cambridge University in the U.K.

Dr. Roos was Founding Director of the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) and currently serves as Chair of the IMVP Advisory Board. He is co-author of The Machine that Changed the World, which has been published in 11 languages and has sold over 600,000 copies. Dr. Roos received the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Research and the Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers "for his 25 year professional career in directing a series of highly innovative research projects of great relevance in the advancement of urban transportation.”

Richard A. Sears, most recently Shell's vice president for exploration and deepwater technical evaluation, has joined MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE) as a visiting scientist. This three-year appointment, a first for the company, will strengthen ties between the MIT and Shell research communities and enhance opportunities for developing innovative solutions to the world's mounting energy problems, according to the MIT News Office.

Within VDS, Dr. Sears shares his expertise in scenario development, energy policy development and complex problem solving.

Advisor on Systems Dynamics

John D. Sterman is the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of MIT's System Dynamics Group. His research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award-winning textbook Business Dynamics.

Prof. Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems. These flight simulators are now used by corporations and universities around the world. His recent research ranges from the dynamics of organizational change and the implementation of sustainable improvement programs to experimental studies assessing public understanding of global climate change.