Research Focuses
Model-Based Engineering
All engineering activities are centered on the management of information: whether generating, simulating, or gathering it. Yet the frameworks we use for representing that information are often static and poorly integrated. My research takes Model-Based Engineering far beyond just using CAD models in place of paper drawings, focusing on what makes models dyanmic, and how we can leverage models using technical solutions. I've written kernels that enable Model-Based Systems Engineering (available here) as well as crossed new bridges in the theory of what makes a model a model. The results are an intersection of information theory, constraint and dynamic programming, and systems theory all rolled into one.
Digital Twins
Digital twins encapsulate all the information available for a real system. They join together everything you can know about something, both measured and inferred. They are fundamental to digital engineering and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and yet we often just focus on the digitization side of them. A model-centric approach to digital twins yields not only unique perspectives for creating digital twins, but also a robust foundation for which to approach management, interaction, and communication. I've published example studies using digital twins of microgrids for the Navy, elevators, manufacturing workcells, robots, and more showing the profound results of the paradigm shift.
Constraint Hypergraphs
Information is values, which means our understanding of everything is a network of variables. The mathematical core of understanding this network is Category Theory, a theory of theories that fully represents system modeling using abstract concepts of pluralities and connections. But it has practical applications, namely applying function composition to model the relationships between informational variables. Building out a network of how different variables affect other variables (technically a hypergraph) gives modelers the ability to see how changing the pitch of a windmill blade affects the migration of birds, or how a new cost policy changes the time-scale of a large project. Learn more about these structures and our work using them to represent the world around us here.
Digital Engineering and PLM
For all the theory of model-based engineering, engineers can only be effective as the tools they have available to them. I've spent years working as the PLM Applications Engineer becoming familiar with modeling and simulation and PLM tools from Siemens, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, MathWorks, Ansys, and Autodesk, as well as open source tools and general programming. In addition to programming for many of these tools, I have done research in the best way to help students and professionals learn software, creating programs that teach both theory and software in reinforcing ways.