SERC Doctoral Student Forum 2025

At the National Press Club in Washington on November 19, emerging systems engineers from schools in the SERC network will compete in the 13th annual SERC Doctoral Student Forum. The winner will earn the Boehm Award and a monetary prize.

Register to attend the SERC Doctoral Student Forum on Eventbrite. You may also register for the SERC Research Review the following day. For questions, contact SERC Communications Manager Alan Skontra.

About the Forum

The SERC Doctoral Student Forum was added as a companion event to the annual SERC Research Review, which started in 2008 during SERC’s first year as a showcase of sponsored research projects. The forum recognizes the academic culture and faculty ethos of the SERC university network by providing an opportunity for students to present at the same setting as experienced researchers. Several competitors in the forum have contributed to SERC projects.

Students are selected for the forum after submitting an abstract that touches on systems engineering or topics such as digital engineering, mission engineering, AI and others.

Read about previous forums, including 2021, 2023, and 2024.

About the Boehm Award

SERC honors its inaugural chief scientist with the Dr. Barry Boehm Award for Doctoral Student Research Excellence. Before his passing in 2022, Boehm enjoyed a prolific, six-decade engineering career and “led in engaging the right researchers and universities and establishing the collaborative networking ethos within SERC.” Read more.

Previous Boehm Award Winners

Pictured left to right: (1) Casey Eaton, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2024; (2) Sonali Sinha Roy, Purdue University, 2023; and (3) Daniel Herrington, Naval Postgraduate School, 2022

• Casey Eaton, The University of Alabama in Huntsville, 2024
  Impact of Technical Measure Omission
• Sonali Sinha Roy, Purdue University, 2023
  A State-based Probabilistic Risk Assessment Framework for System-of-systems Operations
• Daniel Herrington, Naval Postgraduate School, 2022
  Applications of Graph Theory for Reuse of MBSE Design Data

Previous Forum Winners

• 2021 Best Student Presentation: Mr. Christopher White, The University of Alabama at Huntsville, Reexamining the Logical Foundation of Engineering Decision Making Under Uncertainty
• 2020 Best Student Presentation: Georgios Bakirtzis, University of Virginia, Compositionality in Cyber-Physical Systems Theory
• 2019 Best Student Presentation: Tyler Cody, University of Virginia, A Systems Theoretic Approach to the Design of Systems with Learning Algorithms
• 2018 Best Student Paper: Jorge Buenfil, Stevens Institute of Technology, Inference Engine Applied to School Security for Robot-Man Teaming
• 2017 Best Student Paper: Dr. Davinia Rizzo, Stevens Institute of Technology and Sandia National Laboratories, A Predictive Analysis Framework for Six Degrees of Freedom Vibration Qualification
• 2016 Best Student Paper: Eren Sakinc, Auburn University, Manufacturing Cost Prediction in the Presence of Categorical and Numeric Design Attributes
• 2015 Best Student Paper: Paul Beery, Naval Postgraduate School, A Systems Design Exploration Approach That Illuminates Tradespaces Using Simulation Metamodeling