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Systems Engineering

Administration

  • Division Head Christos G. Cassandras, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering
  • Division Associate Head Pirooz Vakili, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
  • Division Director Ruth Mason

Division of Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering (SE) cuts across the traditional engineering departmental structure as a discipline that studies systems—be they electrical, mechanical, chemical, biological, or involving business processes and logistics—through information, decision, and control sciences. The Systems Engineering Program provides a unique curriculum for students with these interests as well as extensive research opportunities through the interdisciplinary Center for Information & Systems Engineering (CISE) and its industry connections.

Systems Engineering is a cross-disciplinary program, offered by the College of Engineering in cooperation with faculty from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Management. The program integrates courses from Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, and Management. Students in the program have access to these units’ state-of-the-art computational and experimental facilities.

The Systems Engineering program offers an undergraduate minor as well as Master of Engineering, Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Through coursework, collaborative training projects, and dissertation research, students will learn to apply analytical, computational, and mathematical methods to all aspects of modern technology that require sophisticated modeling and intelligent information processing for design, management, and control. Students will receive instruction in communications and ethics as appropriate to the social impact and implications of Systems Engineering.

Graduates of the Systems Engineering program are equipped with the unique skills to adapt their knowledge and expertise to diverse application domains. These include, among others, automation, robotics and control; communications and networking; computational biology; information sciences; production, service systems, supply chains, and energy systems.

Admissions

Prospective students should have a strong undergraduate background in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination Test. General Graduate Record Examinations Subject Test scores are also accepted; normally, the subject test should be taken in engineering, mathematics, physics, computer science, or economics. Applicants whose native language is not English are also required to submit results of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Applications may be obtained from, and all materials sent to: Boston University, College of Engineering, Graduate Programs, 44 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215. Applications are also available online.

Applications for admission for the fall semester, with or without financial aid consideration, must be submitted by January 15 for domestic applications and December 15 for international applications. The application deadline for spring admission is ­October 1 for both domestic and international applicants.

Related Bulletin Pages

Beyond the Bulletin