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Mechanical, Operations & Systems Engineering Research
Both private and public sectors have increasingly recognized the value of the systems approach to solve complex problems of the modern world — from climate change, to energy, to pandemics. Dartmouth engineers view the world as a series of interconnected systems, with various feedback loops enhancing or detracting from desired functions. Looking through this lens, researchers can zero in on bottlenecks and find solutions with maximum human-centered impact.
A diversity of concentrations is offered with strong synergies between the biomedical, biological and chemical, electrical and computer, energy, and materials engineering research areas. Graduate engineering students are expected to propose a plan of study that supports their interests, potentially including distinctive intellectual paths unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries and enriched by interdisciplinary synergies.
The following research sub-areas have been strategically chosen to address key challenges and opportunities and are supported by leading faculty in their fields.
Cybersecurity & Information Systems
The ability to decipher patterns in digital behaviors has implications in areas as disparate as cybersecurity, stock-market fraud, and counterterrorism. For better or for worse, more and more of our behaviors are being tracked and collated. That information not only has obvious marketing potential, but also can tell us about the daily patterns of people in society, and how we might improve information systems and design solutions for today's interconnected digital world.
Research Subfields
Artificial intelligence
Cloud computing and embedded systems
Computational social systems
Human thought and behavior
Network analysis and management
Platform economics and strategy
Soft computing
Researchers
Energy Systems & Infrastructure
Understanding cyber-physical energy systems and their integration is critical to improving sustainability and resilience in interdependent smart infrastructures. Dartmouth is active in research that supports the design, planning, and operations of large scale engineering systems involving energy, water, structures, transportation and industrial activities.
Research Subfields
Industrial energy management
Energy storage and conversion devices
Logistics and transportation
Multisector dynamics
Nanoscale energy transport
Smart power grids
Sustainable design
Thermoelectric management
Researchers
Engineered Systems for Extreme & Changing Environments
Rapid biological, physical, chemical, and social changes in a variety of the world's regions are fundamentally altering climate, weather, and ecosystems with profound global impacts. Now is an unprecedented time to use new technologies to investigate previously inaccessible realms and form international partnerships. Recent research involves scientific traverses across Antarctica, expeditions in the Arctic, and ice coring in both polar regions.
Research Subfields
Arctic ecosystem dynamics
Climate change mitigation and adaptation
High-resolution mapping
Sustainability, resilience, and reconfigurability
Terrain identification
Transport and dispersion of environmental contamination
Researchers
Fluid Mechanics & Thermal Systems
The world is filled with engineering applications that make use of the principles of fluid mechanics and thermal systems—industrial and building energy efficiency, environmental turbulence and ecosystem dynamics, and climate change to name a few. Dartmouth researchers are engaged in analytical, computational and experimental investigations to solve a range of problems involving heat, mass and momentum transfer.
Research Subfields
Coupled mechanical and thermal phenomena
Environmental fluid mechanics
Sea ice geophysics
Snow and ice mechanics
Researchers
Operations Analysis & Management
The behavior and performance of complex real-world systems is shaped by interactions between multiple decision-makers. Operations research at Dartmouth has applications in energy, transportation, education, healthcare, design and manufacturing, drawing from tools in optimization, human and machine learning, and platform strategies.
Research Subfields
Design thinking
Human-centered design
Market economics
Product innovation and development
Supply chains
Researchers
Systems Modeling & Optimization
Multi-component systems—such as communication networks, industrial processes, interacting teams of robots, and influences on human behavior—can produce unexpected emergent properties that make the overall system tough to model.
"Many of the systems we are building, the human user and social aspects of those systems are really critical. Being able to incorporate the human as part of the engineering system will be even more important as we move ahead.” —George Cybenko, Dorothy and Walter Gramm Professor of Engineering
Research Subfields
Autonomous robot teams
Cognitive decision processes
Decision making
Healthcare analytics
Human-computer interaction
Market structure and performance
Software agent systems
Sound wave propagation