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This IGERT project will establish a multidisciplinary graduate program in reliability and risk engineering, analysis, and management at Vanderbilt University. Twenty-five faculty participants in this program are drawn from three different schools: Engineering (Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Management of Technology), Management, and Arts and… more »

This IGERT project will establish a multidisciplinary graduate program in reliability and risk engineering, analysis, and management at Vanderbilt University. Twenty-five faculty participants in this program are drawn from three different schools: Engineering (Civil, Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Management of Technology), Management, and Arts and Sciences (Mathematics). The research theme consists of three inter-linked areas: (i) large systems reliability and risk, (ii) device- and component-level reliability, and (iii) uncertainty analysis methods.

As engineering systems grow in size, complexity and cost, reliability and risk assessment is increasingly dependent on modeling and simulation, rather than on expensive (or impossible) traditional test-based methods. Therefore, the unique features of the research theme are: (i) development of the modeling and simulation-based methodology for reliability and risk assessment, (ii) systematic integration of models and tools across disciplines, and (iii) inclusion of economic, legal, regulatory, and social perspectives in risk assessment and management. The research projects will apply these concepts to infrastructure, environmental, network, mechanical, and electronic systems.

The educational goals are to broaden the training with multidisciplinary perspectives, embed information technology, include model integration and high performance computing technologies, and increase the number and diversity of reliability and risk engineers and managers trained in the modeling and simulation methodology. A number of strategies are proposed to achieve these objectives: multidisciplinary coursework and dissertation topics, laboratory rotations, industry and government laboratory internships, seminars, workshops, case studies, training in professional communication and ethics, undergraduate and high school teacher participants, aggressive recruitment (especially among underrepresented groups), and systematic evaluation by industry, government and academia. The program will include strong participation and support from several industries, government agencies and national laboratories, through internships, workshop and seminar participation, educational and research collaboration, and advisory committee. Through these efforts, the graduate program aims to become a self-sustaining center of national and international leadership. The IGERT award will lead to 35 Ph.D.’s over 9 years, fulfilling a critical need of the American industry in this important field.

IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the multidisciplinary backgrounds and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing new, innovative models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. In the fourth year of the program, awards are being made to twenty-two institutions for programs that collectively span all areas of science and engineering supported by NSF. The intellectual foci of this specific award reside in the Directorates for Engineering; Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Mathematical and Physical Sciences; and Education and Human Resources. « less