Researcher

Professor Azad Madni is the Executive Director of the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program and Professor of Astronautical Engineering in the University of Southern California. He is also the Director of USC’s Distributed Autonomy and Intelligent Systems (DAIS) Laboratory. He has a courtesy joint appointment in the schools of Education and Medicine.

He conducts research in probabilistic model-based and machine learning approaches in engineering complex systems. His specific areas of research are engineered resilient systems, distributed autonomy and intelligent systems. His research sponsors include DoD-SERC,  DARPA,  DHS S&T, DTRA, OSD, MDA, ONR,  NAVAIR, NAVSEA, SPAWAR, AFOSR, AFRL, ARI, ARL, RDECOM, CECOM,  DOE, NIST, NASA, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman Corporation, General Motors, SAIC, and Lockheed Martin Orincon.

He is an elected Fellow of AAAS, AIAA, INCOSE, IEEE (Life), IETE (Life), and SDPS (Life).  A few of his noteworthy awards in 2019 include AIAA/ASEE Leland Atwood Award, INCOSE Founders Award, ASME CIE Distinguished Leadership Award, and Engineers’ Council William B. Johnson International Inter-Professional Founders Award. He is also the recipient of the 2011 INCOSE Pioneer Award, IEEE SMC Award for leading the most active Systems Science and Engineering Technical Committee (MBSE), the 2006 SDPS C.V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Scholar Award, and many more. 

He is the founder, CEO and chief scientist of Intelligent Systems Technology Inc, an award-winning high-tech company that he founded 25 years ago to pursue research in modeling and simulation technologies for education, training and performance support. 

He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1968, 1971 and 1978, respectively. He is also a graduate of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute program for senior executives. He is listed in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who is Industry and Finance and Who’s Who in America.