Faculty

Dr. Mohamad Darayi, assistant professor of systems engineering, focuses his principal research and key publications on infrastructure network resilience and simulation modeling applications in health care, manufacturing, and supply chain management. He teaches courses in system simulation, risk analysis, network modeling, and data analytics.

Dr. Joanna F. DeFranco is an assistant professor of software engineering. She has worked as an electronics engineer for the Navy and as a software engineer at Motorola. Her research interests include software engineering teams, effective teamwork, Internet of Things, and software-intensive critical systems.

Dr. Nil Ergin, associate professor of systems engineering, researches system of systems engineering, complex adaptive systems, model-based systems engineering, and multi-agent systems. Dr. Ergin is also affiliated with the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), a DoD–funded University Affiliated Research Center, where she works on collaborative research efforts among multiple universities. She is a member of IEEE and INCOSE.

Dr. Kathryn Jablokow is a professor of engineering design and mechanical engineering. She is an experienced researcher, with special expertise in design cognition, engineering creativity, and high-performance design teams. She is also an award-winning educator who has developed multiple engineering courses related to problem solving, creativity, and invention, including a massive open online course that has attracted more than 250,000 learners since 2013. She investigates the human side of engineering and the effects that individual cognitive differences have on the processes and products of design.

Dr. Mohamad Kassab is an assistant professor of software engineering. His research includes requirements engineering, software architecture, software quality, software measurements, and the Internet of Things. He has published extensively in software engineering books and journals. With more than 17 years of industrial experiences, he also worked in different industrial roles. Dr. Kassab teaches courses in requirements engineering, software testing, and software architecture and design.

Dr. Phillip A. Laplante is a professor of software and systems engineering. He has an extensive list of publications and deep practical experience in requirements engineering, development, testing, and project management for a variety of complex systems, including safety critical and embedded ones. He is widely recognized for work in real-time systems, real-time imaging, and applications in the Internet of Things. He is also a pioneer in licensing of software engineers, having led the development and acceptance of the first licensure exam for software engineers in the United States.

Dr. Ashkan Negahban is an assistant professor of engineering management. Prior to joining Penn State, he was an instructor at Auburn University, where he taught courses in simulation, probability theory, and statistics. His research interests include the application of different types of simulation (discrete event, agent-based, and Monte Carlo) in design and operation of complex systems. He has developed several e-learning modules that have received worldwide publicity and are used by faculty from leading institutions around the world.

Dr. Colin Neill is an associate professor of software engineering and systems engineering. He teaches many courses in software and systems engineering and project management. He is the author of more than 80 articles on the development and evolution of complex software and systems and their management and governance. Dr. Neill is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of INCOSE, and he serves as associate editor-in-chief of Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering.

Dr. Raghvinder S. Sangwan is an associate professor of software engineering. His teaching and research involve analysis, design, and development of software-intensive systems and their architecture, and automatic/semi-automatic approaches to assessment of their design and code complexity. He actively consults for Siemens Corporate Technology in Princeton, New Jersey, and holds a visiting scientist appointment at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a senior member of the IEEE and ACM.

Dr. Kailasam Satyamurthy, assistant professor of engineering, teaches decision and risk analysis, finance and economics for engineers, statistics, optimization, and continuous improvement courses. He held managerial positions at Vanguard and at GenCorp and conducted extensive research in the finite element modeling of nonlinear mechanical and thermal systems. He has vast experience in Six Sigma quality and continuous improvement, and has trained numerous professionals in manufacturing, transactional, and health care industries.

Dr. Doug Schumer is assistant professor of engineering design and faculty director of the REV-UP Center for Entrepreneurship. Following 20 years in industry leading medical device R&D, Dr. Schumer held the position of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's professor of practice in biomedical engineering and served as Georgia Tech's first director of design innovation and education. He is a member of the New York Academy of Science and the American Physical Society.