June 22, 2007 —
The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium was held in San Diego from June 22 to 28, 2007.  The Epstein ISE Department and the University of Southern California had a strong presence at this conference.  Some of the reflected highlights for USC were the following:

1. Prof. Barry Boehm received the award for the best paper in the Systems Engineering journal for 2006.   
2. US doctoral candidate Jo Ann Lane received the INCOSE doctoral student fellowship, which includes a $5,000 stipend.
3. USC had the strongest contingent of doctoral students (9) attending SEANET, which provided them with a forum to interact with their peers in other universities.  MIT was also strongly represented.  Based on her experience with this SEANET and the SEANET that accompanied CSER 2006, Prof. Donna Rhodes of MIT stated that SEANET really belonged with the CSER and not with the symposia.  She stated that she plans to hold the SEANET 2008 on the USC campus in coordination with CSER 2008.  Profs. George Friedman, Barry Boehm, and Ray Madachy were among the leaders and mentors of this meeting.  Jo Ann Lane hosted the meeting at San Diego State University.  Seeing this level of doctoral student participation underscored the importance of going forward with a doctoral program in Systems Architecting and Engineering.
4. The Academic Forum was keynoted by Prof. George Friedman speaking about biologically inspired systems.  As a result of this presentation he was invited to present on this same topic in Tokyo.  Prof. Barry Boehm represented the CSSE in this forum.  Dr. Elliot Axelband presented a paper on the results of the CSSE workshop that he chaired, entitled New Research Directions for Systems of Systems Architecting.  Subsequently, he was asked to submit the paper for publication by the editors of two journals. Scott Jackson, Prof. Barry Boehm, Dr. Azad Madni, Prof. Gerry Nadler, Prof. Stan Settles, Winsor Brown, Dr. Ed Colbert, and Dr.. Ricardo Valerdi (a recent USC doctoral graduate now at MIT) were co-authors.  Dr. Azad Madni and Prof. George Friedman also participated in the forum.
5. The Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER) was a major topic in several of the working meetings.  INCOSE has decided to continue as a co-sponsor of this conference rather than creating a separate research conference.  The next CSER is planned for April 4 and 5, 2008 in Los Angeles.  After 2008, the CSER site will be established by a committee which is co-chaired by USC and Stevens Institute of Technology.  This seems to acknowledge that the CSER has become the leading research conference in systems engineering.  As a result of this recognition, several universities, including MIT, have expressed an interest in hosting CSER 2009.
6. As a result of a conversation that Prof. George Friedman had with the current INCOSE president and president-elect, they plan to hold the INCOSE board of directors meeting in Los Angeles and hopefully at USC in conjunction with the 2008 CSER.
7. Dr. Elliot Axelband planned and led a plenary panel entitled Are New Systems Engineering Principles Required to Treat Enterprises as Systems?  Dr. Azad Madni was also a presenter/panelist.
8. The USC Distance Education Network (DEN) booth in the exposition was well attended and served to remind the engineers of our program.  A number of new prospects were attracted to the booth.  
9. USC participation in the INCOSE Corporate Advisory Board (CAB) provided more visibility and linkage with industrial leaders in systems engineering.  The USC logo was evident on the advertising for the CAB. Prof. Stan Settles is our primary representative on the CAB and also participates in the state-of-the-art focus group of the CAB.
10. For over a year, Prof. George Friedman has been acting as the two-way representative between INCOSE and the IEEE Systems Council.  He chaired a meeting of advisors who had substantial background in both IEEE and INCOSE: Prof. Andy Sage, Prof. Bill Rouse, Dr. Elliot Axelband, Prof. Wolt Fabrycky, Dr. Azad Madni and Ken Ptack.  The results of this meeting were shared with INCOSE President, Paul Robataille and President-elect, Pat Hale.  The result was that Pat Hale agreed to present to the plenary meeting at CSER 08 just prior to the talk by Paul Gartz, President of the IEEE Systems Council next April.
11. Paper presentations and/or session chair duties were handled by many USC-associated people including Prof. Barry Boehm, USC doctoral candidates JoAnn Lane and Indrajeet Dixit, Dr. Azad Madni, Prof. Ray Madachy, Scott Jackson, Prof. Marilee Wheaton, Dr. Rick Selby, Prof. Stan Settles, and Dr. Elliot Axelband.
12. The INCOSE Systems Engineering University Leadership Roundtable held its first official meeting that included adopting a charter and electing the initial leadership team.  Prof. Stan Settles was elected to be the initial chair of the group.  Its next meeting will be held in conjunction with the 2008 CSER.  Prof. Stan Settles talking with Prof. Dan Roos of MIT, who chairs the Council of Engineering Systems Universities (CESUN) to consider the possibility of the two academic leaderships cooperating in meeting at the CSER 2008.
13. Prof. Stan Settles participated in the meetings of the Commercial Steering Board which has led to more papers and panels that are of interest to organizations other than aerospace and defense.  
14. Dr. Ricardo Valerdi was a very active participant in many aspects of the program including co-chairing the SEANET and having six papers accepted.
15. The USC research direction as indicated by our creation of the Center for Systems and Software Engineering (CSSE) was recognized and complimented by a number of attendees.  The increasing importance of the merger of these intellectual areas was evident in many of the sessions at the symposium.
16. Prof. Barry Boehm, Prof. George Friedman, Scott Jackson, Dr. Azad Madni and Dr. Elliot Axelband attended the Fellows meeting.  George was selected in the first generation of INCOSE Fellows and Elliot was included in the second generation and is the previous chair of the Fellows committee.  USC has more Fellows than any other university (Prof. Eberhardt Rechtin also was a Fellow).  MIT is second with three members.  
17. Scott Jackson attended the Technical Leadership Team meeting where he is Assistant Director of Public Interest Applications. He also chaired two meetings of the Resilient Systems Working Group.