Director’s Message

Ayşe Coşkun, PhD
Director, Center for Information & Systems Engineering
Professor, College of Engineering (ECE)
Head of PEAC Lab

As intelligent systems grow increasingly ubiquitous, their impact on society can be felt in every corner, from smart cities and self-driving cars to smart assistants and manufacturing robots to applying machine learning everywhere, from healthcare to finance. These data-driven systems are increasingly complex and AI-based or autonomous in nature. Harnessing the power of these systems through cross-disciplinary research is becoming increasingly important.

CISE was founded in 2001 as an interdisciplinary hub focused on theory and quantitative methods to advance analysis, design and management of complex systems at the interface of diverse disciplines. Building on its core competencies, today the CISE community includes 54 invited faculty affiliates and over 100 PhD students who bring a breadth of diverse disciplinary expertise anchored by systems-level thinking.  From concept and algorithms to implementation in software systems and hardware, CISE researchers engage in interdisciplinary and convergent research to advance the science and societal impact of intelligent systems to better our world.

CISE research in information and systems engineering encompasses a set of methodologies that enable data-driven engineering, computational and data science, effective decision making, and controlling/optimizing the operation of many human-made or natural complex systems. By developing new methodologies, CISE research has made seminal contributions and impacted a plethora of application areas, from robotics and autonomy, energy systems, computer systems, and communication networks, to medical imaging, computational medicine, video surveillance, and bioinformatics.

Ongoing research projects innovate to bring about “smarter” cities by designing automated traffic controllers and smart lighting systems, leveraging neurophysiological insights from animals and humans to control autonomous vehicles, combating cyber threats, designing next-generation airport screening systems, applying AI to diagnose computer performance bugs, elucidating how proteins interact to guide drug-discovery, developing predictive health analytics for a variety of diseases, and more.

Our mission at CISE is to deliver real-world impact by igniting and supporting cross-disciplinary collaborations to spark new ideas, and support funding that enables work on those ideas and produces visible research outcomes. We provide a suite of innovative programs designed to build deep partnerships. Along with a proven track record of leading major sponsored projects and successful collaborations with industry, national laboratories, and non-profit institutions, CISE supports faculty by bringing vast research and operational knowledge to help faculty achieve their research goals.

I invite you to explore the CISE website to learn more about research taking place at CISE and the innovative programs we offer to support faculty and student research affiliates.  If you would like to engage with CISE, please contact me or reach out to CISE administration.