DECEMBER 2024
Dear Colleagues,
It was wonderful seeing many of you last month for the SERC Research Review and SERC Doctoral Student Forum. Thank you to the Honorable Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt of the Office of the Secretary of Defense for giving a keynote on test and evaluation; to Ms. Kristen J. Baldwin of the Air Force, Ms. Jennifer Swanson of the Army, and Mr. Thomas Simms of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering for speaking on a panel of Senior Executive Service members; and to the SERC researchers who presented on digital engineering, mission engineering, architecture decision making, cybersecurity, and much more.
This newsletter includes the summary report for another of our major events, the AI4SE & SE4AI Research and Application Workshop, as well as AIRC research on megaprojects and reliability requirements. When we return in the new year, Dr. Laura Freeman will host a webinar on generative AI with Dr. Schmidt and other stakeholders. Be sure to register before you break this month. We wish you the warmest of holidays!
Sincerely,
Dinesh Verma
Executive Director
AI4SE & SE4AI Research & Application Workshop 2024 Report
This fifth annual report covers presentations, panels, and keynotes from Dr. Missy Cummings of George Mason University, Mr. Dan Mahanty of the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and Mr. Matthew Rose of Snowflake.
16th SERC Research Review Highlights Five Focus Areas
Dr. Douglas Schmidt joined SERC researchers and distinguished leaders from the DoD for rigorous discussions on applying systems engineering for national defense.
University of Alabama in Huntsville Student Wins SERC Boehm Award
During the SERC Doctoral Student Forum, Ms. Casey Eaton earned honors for her presentation on the “Impact of Technical Measure Omission in Systems Design Frameworks.”
Trusted AI Challenge for Armaments Systems Engineering
Dr. Peter Beling of Virginia Tech is the PI on SERC research that enlists college teams to develop engineering methods for system reliability and trustworthiness in the design and architecture of AI-enabled systems.
Setting Reliability Requirements for Subsystems
An AIRC research team led by Dr. Azad Madni of the University of Southern California spoke with DoD personnel responsible for system maintenance about improving reliability.
The Future of Megaproject Management
Paired with a webinar series co-hosted by Defense Acquisition University, SERC CTO Tom McDermott and colleagues examined technologies, methods and tools critical to managing the future of megaprojects.
On January 6, Dr. Laura Freeman of Virginia Tech and the SERC Research Council will moderate a webinar – Generative AI in the DoD Acquisition Lifecycle – with insights from Dr. Douglas Schmidt, Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense; Ms. Alexis Bonnell, Chief Information Officer and Director of the Digital Capabilities Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory; Dr. Heather Wojton, Director of the Operational Evaluation Division, Institute for Defense Analyses; and Mr. John Robert, Deputy Director, Software Solutions Division, Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute. See more details and register on the event page.
January 6, 2025
Generative AI in the DoD Acquisition Lifecycle Webinar (Virtual)
February 1-4, 2025
INCOSE International Workshop (Seville, Spain | Virtual)
March 18-21, 2025
Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) (Long Beach, CA)
April 7-10, 2025
IEEE SysCon (Montreal, Canada)
May 7-8, 2025
Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Symposium (Monterey, CA)
June 9-11, 2025
CESUN International Engineering Systems Symposium (Arlington, VA)
We invite collaborators to submit research news to be included in future releases of the SERC Updates.
Resources:
Search SERC Publications
Search AIRC Publications
This fall, AIRC continued a webinar series with the Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University on the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform. In the screenshot above, AIRC Chief Scientist Dr. Philip Antón (top left) spoke with (clockwise) Mr. Greg Little, Senior Counselor, Palantir Technologies; Ms. Yousra Fazili, Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller/CFO); and Mr. Mark Krzysko, SES, Principal Deputy Director of Enterprise Information, Acquisition Data and Analytics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. Visit the AIRC website to see recordings of the fourth webinar and the fifth webinar.
