Department of Systems and Enterprises

Philip Odonkor, an assistant professor in the Department of Systems and Enterprises, will receive the Stevens Presidential Fellowship Award, which recognizes a faculty member’s achievements in research and their potential for future contributions and impact.

Odonkor’s research focuses on design optimization, data-driven control, cyber-physical systems and sustainability. Last academic year, Odonkor received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his ambitious project titled "Evaluating Cooperative Intelligence in Connected Communities."

Odonkor’s CAREER project will explore a future where groups of buildings can autonomously cooperate to share energy resources such as solar panels, batteries and generators. Over the next five years, Odonkor will harness the power of multi-agent simulations and real-world experiments to uncover how cooperation can emerge, persist and lead to collective benefits – from energy savings to enhanced climate adaptation and community resilience.

"Imagine buildings, like those on the Stevens campus, forming an energy alliance," Odonkor said. "Instead of operating independently, they could work together to optimize their energy use. The key isn't competition for resources, it's collaboration. By learning to share and coordinate, these buildings can make smarter decisions about their combined energy needs, leading to a more efficient and sustainable system."

Since joining Stevens in 2019, Odonkor has received research awards from the NSF, the Department of Defense and industrial sponsors totaling more than $4.5 million.

Odonkor also received the 2024 Provost's Early Career Award for Research Excellence. He holds a patent for “Dynamic Dispatching with Robustness for Large-Scale Heterogeneous Mining Fleet via Deep Reinforcement Learning.”

Dr. Kishore Pochiraju was appointed as chair of the new Department of Systems & Enterprises (SE) for a five-year term beginning September 1, 2024.

Dr. Pochiraju previously served as a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME). Since joining the ME department in 1997, Dr. Pochiraju served in multiple leadership roles including Director of the Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship (IDEaS) program, Director of the Prototype Object Fabrication Laboratory (PROoF Lab), and the long-time Director of the Design and Manufacturing Institute (DMI). Most notably, he served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering and Science (SES) from 2017 to 2022.

Dr. Pochiraju’s research focuses on computational and AI-driven design and integration methodologies for complex systems, model-based systems engineering, and developing digital twins for autonomous systems. His work also extends to the rapid realization of systems using additive manufacturing techniques, marking him as a pioneer in this field. Dr. Pochiraju has published one book, six book chapters, 54 journal papers, 128 conference papers, and three patents. He has also been awarded over 40 research grants totaling over $12M, mostly as PI.

As a result of Dr. Pochiraju's academic achievements and his exceptional contributions in his field, he has been recognized as Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Fellow of American Society for Composites. He was the recipient of the Inaugural Schaefer School Doctoral Advisor Award.