Marilee Wheaton, SERC Doctoral Fellow, was sworn in as President of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) at the 2022 International Workshop in January. Ms. Wheaton has served the last two-years as President-Elect of INCOSE, during which time her leadership and commitment to team building has played a critical role in the organization.
A long-time collaborator with the SERC and current SERC Doctoral Fellow, Ms. Wheaton is conducting her PhD research at the University of Southern California. Wheaton stated that, “SERC research contributions provide a strong foundation for the systems engineering community, which is key to fostering innovation and enhancing the field.”
Wheaton has held several executive level technical leadership positions. She is also a Systems Engineering Fellow at The Aerospace Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) headquartered in El Segundo, California. In this role, she is responsible for providing technical leadership and building capability across the corporation to include digital engineering, enterprise systems engineering, systems architecting, and model-based systems engineering. Her previous assignment was as the executive director and general manager of The Aerospace Institute, which coordinated all education, training, and staff development activities at the corporation. Wheaton has held several executive level technical leadership positions at Aerospace and was a prior director with TRW Systems providing leadership for cost estimation, metrics, and quantitative management goals.
Marilee Wheaton, Aerospace-SERC Doctoral Fellow, INCOSE President
INCOSE is one of the premier professional societies for systems engineers in the world. The SERC has had a strategic relationship with INCOSE since the SERC was founded in 2008. The first research task for the SERC included a collaboration with INCOSE to develop the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK), and the SERC continues to have a governance role in the SEBoK today along with INCOSE and the IEEE Systems Council. In addition, many SERC researchers are also actively engaged in INCOSE working groups, hold leadership positions within INCOSE, or are authors or editors for the SEBoK. Tom McDermott, SERC Chief Technology Officer, stated that, “INCOSE has a prominent role in transition of SERC research to the systems community at large. This important relationship should enhance that role in the future.”