Shaping the Future
Boston University College of Engineering has appointed Emiliano Dall’Anese, associate professor of electrical & computer engineering and systems engineering, as interim head of the Division of Systems Engineering, effective July 1, 2026. Dall’Anese will serve a one-year term while the college conducts an international search for the division’s next leader.
Dall’Anese succeeds Distinguished Professor Christos Cassandras, who is stepping down to return to the faculty after 18 years as division head. Since assuming the role in 2008, Cassandras has helped shape Systems Engineering (SE) into an internationally recognized research community known for its strengths in optimization, control systems, autonomous systems, networks, data-driven decision-making, and complex systems analysis.
Dall’Anese joined Boston University in 2024. His research focuses on optimization, control, machine learning, dynamical systems, and sustainable energy systems, advancing approaches that help complex systems adapt, respond, and operate more efficiently in real time.
The Division of Systems Engineering advances convergent research that brings together expertise in engineering, computation, decision science, and complex systems to address real-world challenges. Through its master’s programs, PhD program, and undergraduate minor, the division prepares students to address large-scale challenges in areas ranging from autonomy and intelligent systems to infrastructure, sustainability, robotics, and data-driven engineering.
Optimizing Complex Systems for Societal Impact
A nationally recognized researcher in optimization, control, and learning for cyber-physical and network systems, Dall’Anese develops methods and algorithms that improve the safety, efficiency, resilience, and sustainability of complex engineered systems. His work addresses challenges in sustainable energy, intelligent infrastructure, and autonomous systems, with applications ranging from optimized power systems and incentivized renewable energy transitions to electric vehicles, robotics, and other intelligent technologies.
Dall’Anese has earned national recognition for his research, including a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, leadership on federally funded projects, and contributions to advancing intelligent control and optimization methods for energy systems and networked infrastructures.
Dall’Anese is looking forward to his time leading a unique, convergent academic division. “The SE division has provided BU with a distinctive graduate academic identity in a discipline that cuts across traditional departmental boundaries,” he says. “It has served as a unified intellectual home for faculty and students whose interests lie in the modeling, analysis, and design of complex systems. Today, these systems—from robotics to smart cities, power grids, AI data centers, and health systems—are increasingly distributed,data-rich, intelligent, and composed of interacting physical, computational, social, and decision-making layers. Research and education in these domains require tools and methods that are not fully housed within any single traditional department.”
As interim head, Dall’Anese aims to amplify the division’s educational, research, and external footprint, and modernize its educational programs so that graduate students receive both rigorous methodological training and clearer pathways into high-impact careers, he says.
“Lastly, an important goal for SE is to be a place where students find an intellectual home and can succeed,” Dall’Anese adds. “That means maintaining a supportive and intellectually vibrant environment in which students from different backgrounds have access to mentorship, understand the expectations of the program, and can see clear paths toward academic, research, and professional success.”
Celebrating 18 Years of Leadership and Service
Dall’Anese succeeds Christos Cassandras, a distinguished scholar and internationally recognized expert in systems, optimization, control, robotics, and applied probability. Since becoming division head in 2008, Cassandras has helped shape SE into a collaborative and intellectually expansive division with strong ties across engineering, computing, mathematics, data science, and emerging technologies.
Over the course of his leadership, Cassandras helped strengthen the SE division’s academic identity, research profile, and interdisciplinary collaborations while mentoring generations of students and faculty and advancing research at the intersection of autonomy, intelligent systems, and complex decision-making.
Reflecting on the success of SE over the past 18 years, Cassandras says, “The division has pioneered an interdisciplinary graduate program that offers a unique combination of mathematical and methodological depth for addressing high-impact societal and technological challenges for which such interdisciplinarity is indispensable, from smart cities to data-driven medical informatics. Our program has been ranked number-one in a number of important categories that Academic Analytics uses based on purely objective data. The program is widely recognized as a leader in the field of systems and control with several prestigious award winners among our faculty and a prominent presence at international conferences and professional organizations like IEEE.”
Cassandras, who is returning to the faculty to pursue a number of impactful research projects, says that Dall’Anese is well suited to take the helm of the division as interim head. “Emiliano has embraced the mission of Systems Engineering at BU and will take it to the next level through his ability to focus on the emerging themes that will characterize the field over the next decade: AI and data-driven methods, autonomy, human-machine interacting systems, and energy sustainability,” Cassandras says. “His enthusiasm is infectious, and he has demonstrated an ability to work with everyone, exhibiting grace through adversity and adherence to the professional principles that have helped him achieve the level of recognition as a world-class researcher that he enjoys today.”
Continuing a Tradition of Excellence
“The Systems Engineering Division is at an exciting moment, says Dean Elise Morgan, sharing her thoughts on the division’s momentum and the opportunities ahead under Dall’Anese’s leadership. “The problems it has always cared about—how complex systems behave, adapt, and can be made to perform better—are now central to some of the most consequential challenges in engineering: energy transitions, autonomous systems, intelligent infrastructure, and more. Christos Cassandras spent 18 years building a division with the talent, culture, and research vision to meet exactly these kinds of challenges, and his legacy is evident. I am sincerely thankful for his service and leadership.
“I am also delighted to welcome Emiliano Dall’Anese to this leadership role,” Morgan says. “He joined BU just a year ago, and he has already built a leading program in sustainable infrastructure and intelligent systems. Emiliano has exactly the kind of scientific depth and instinct for collaboration that SE needs as it looks ahead. I am excited to see what he and the SE community build together.”