Daniel Roos presents closing remarks at the symposium, 'The Evolution of Engineering Systems: A Rich Past, an Exciting Future,' held in his honor on April 20 in Bartos Theater.
Joseph Sussman welcomes the audience to the symposium held in honor of Roos.
Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Engineering Systems Division, welcomes guests at a dinner at the MIT Faculty Club in honor of Roos.
The MIT Engineering Systems Division (ESD) presented the April 20 symposium "The Evolution of Engineering Systems: A Rich Past, an Exciting Future," honoring Professor Daniel Roos, founding director of ESD.
Held in Bartos Theater, this event was the Charles L. Miller Symposium and was co-sponsored by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics; MIT Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development; and MIT Portugal. The event can be watched online in ESD's collection on TechTV.
Moderated by J.R. East Professor Joseph Sussman, the symposium featured several speakers who have worked with Roos over the course of his time at MIT (55 years at the Institute, serving on the faculty since 1966) — offering a chronological overview of some substantial projects in areas such as computer systems, urban transportation and international education. Many of these projects — which involved not only significant technical components, but also complex systems encompassing people, processes, and policies — would later prove to be antecedents of the Engineering Systems Division, established in 1998.
Professor Edward Crawley spoke on "The Internationalization of MIT," particularly in the context of Roos' efforts in a number of significant international partnerships. Crawley discussed the prospect of what a global university might look like, and explained how Roos' abilities as an effective facilitator of international relationships have contributed to the Institute.
"I think [MIT's] future success as an international, global university in large part rests on Dan's contributions," Crawley said.
"MIT needed to be a player in the huge sociotechnical systems that are important to the country — and to our society," Gelb said. "These [systems] belonged to no one [particular department] at MIT. Clearly, an integrating unit was the arguable right place to focus — with foundations in engineering, management and the social sciences.
In offering the final remarks of the symposium, Roos mentioned the forthcoming engineering systems book series from MIT Press, which will include the book Engineering Systems: Meeting Human Needs in a Complex Technological World (which Roos authored with Associate Professor Olivier de Weck and Professor of the Practice Christopher Magee). Roos read from the book's foreword, written by Charles Vest, MIT president emeritus and president of the National Academy of Engineering.
Roos also spoke about the Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN), which now includes more than 50 universities and was founded by ESD. He cited the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology and Singapore University of Technology and Design as major new universities that each have a curriculum deeply rooted in engineering systems.