Campus & Community

SSE Dean’s Seminar Series Concludes 2020-2021 Academic Year of Cross-Disciplinary Programming

In an academic year interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its communicative challenges, the SSE Dean’s Seminar Series offered a virtual platform to support the advancement of the systems engineering discipline and its applications to society.


The School of Systems & Enterprises’ (SSE’s) 2020-2021 academic year was a period of robust intellectual exchange across various SSE events and initiatives, including the SSE Dean’s Seminar Series. In its inaugural year of cross-disciplinary programming, Dean Yehia Massoud’s SSE Dean’s Seminar Series: The Future of Systems featured virtual lectures from 17 invited speakers. Cumulatively, the seminars confronted an array of 21st-century concerns with high relevancy to society. The research-driven presentations touched just about every area where systems engineering is applicable, including the aerospace, natural language processing, machine learning, healthcare and transportation fields, among others.

Hosted on Wednesdays at noon for Stevens students, faculty, staff and guests, the SSE Dean’s Seminar Series foregrounded the groundbreaking research undertaken by the speakers in an engaging, conversation-driven framework. After presenting their respective 20-minute seminars, invited speakers accepted questions during brief Q&A sessions designed to promote discussion, debate and deeper understanding of the systems-based concepts delineated in each session.

Photo of Dean Yehia MassoudDr. Yehia Massoud, Dean of the School of Systems & Enterprises

“I am grateful for the efforts of our speakers throughout the past year of SSE Dean’s Seminar production,” said Dean Yehia Massoud. “Amid challenges introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the faculty-led lectures promoted virtual collaboration that allowed attendees to consider contemporary challenges from a variety of different angles. Together, presenters, faculty members and other guests explored the complexity of systems approaches across industries, embodying the intellectual interplay around which the SSE centers.”

As it closes the SSE Dean’s Seminar Series’ first year of production, the SSE invites you to view the diverse and forward-thinking lectures that comprised this year's programming. The school eagerly anticipates the 2021-2022 academic year, during which the SSE Dean’s Seminar Series will return in an in-person format.

Dean Yehia Massoud thanks attendees for taking part in the 2020-2021 SSE Dean’s Seminar Series, and extends his gratitude to all the speakers.

View the 2020-2021 academic year’s SSE Dean’s Seminar lectures.