Lead

Dr. Michel-Alexandre Cardin

Michel-Alexandre is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Computational Aided Engineering at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, and Lead of the Strategic Engineering Lab. His work focuses on the development and evaluation of new computer aided methodologies to support the design of engineering systems, with applications in infrastructure and financial systems. The work covers topics such as concept generation and selection, decision-making, machine learning, stochastic optimization, and uncertainty modeling.

In particular, his work focuses on design for flexibility (also known as real options), a design paradigm aiming at enabling better flexibility, sustainability and resilience in complex engineered systems, with the goal of improving expected performance in the face of uncertainty and risks. This is highly needed, especially given ongoing and future threats from climate change, cyber and physical terrorism, and pandemics. His latest efforts explore the roles of AI and machine learning as part of this emerging paradigm.

PhD Students

Cesare Caputo

Cesare is an EPSRC funded doctoral student working on applications of Machine Learning in the design process for energy systems under uncertainty. His work focuses on the integration of flexibility, resilience and sustainability into a unified framework which is better aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(UN SDGs) and can be used in the early stages of the design decision making progress. Engineering options theory, stochastic optimization and deep reinforcement learning are some of the core interests guiding the investigation.

Luka Malone

 - Steffen Blume 

Master's students

- Joshua Anderson

- Rachel Brown

- Trevor Fung   

- Guillermina Valenzuela

- Jingui Wu

Undergraduate students

-  Nutnicha Saduagkan

- Alexandre Sayegh

Alumni

Post-Doctoral Research Associates

Dr Wyean Chan

Dr Wyean Chan joined Prof Michel-Alexandre Cardin's research group as a research fellow in 2017-18 at the National University of Singapore. He worked on the optimization of decision support systems, using real options decision rules, for food waste-to-energy management and emergency medical systems. He is currently a research scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing, at A*STAR in Singapore.

Aakil M. Caunhye

Aakil M. Caunhye is currently Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Business Analytics at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Prior to that, he was a Research Fellow at National University of Singapore, as part of Singapore-ETH Center’s Future Resilient Systems project, under the supervision of Dr. Michel-Alexandre Cardin. During this time, Dr. Caunhye developed robust optimization models for resilient power generation/transmission expansion planning using real options analysis and decision rules. 

Papers:

Caunhye, A. M., & Cardin, M. A. (2017). An approach based on robust optimization and decision rules for analyzing real options in engineering systems design. IISE Transactions, 49(8), 753-767.

Caunhye, A. M., & Cardin, M. A. (2018). Towards more resilient integrated power grid capacity expansion: A robust optimization approach with operational flexibility. Energy Economics, 72, 20-34.

Mark P. De Lessio, Ph.D, MBA

Mark graduated from Clarkson University with a BS degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering and Management and embarked on a lengthy career in the telecom and Internet sectors where he had increasingly responsible roles in Product Management in both multi-national and entrepreneurial organizations.  While working in industry, Mark obtained an MBA from New York University (STERN). Mark returned to academia full time to earn a PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK) as a member of the Engineering Design Centre (EDC) where his dissertation focused on the complex product design and development process.  Upon completing his PhD, Mark joined the National University of Singapore (NUS), under the guidance of Dr. Michel Cardin, as a Senior Research Fellow and member of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). At NUS his research focused on using Design Structure Matrix (DSM) modeling and “real option” analysis to enable better decision making capability and execution for successfully developing and growing organizations such as entrepreneurial start-ups or divisions within large multi-nationals. After completing his work at NUS, Mark joined New York University (NYU) as an Industry Assistant Professor and Program Director of the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering programs.  Mark has recently returned to NUS as an Associate Professor of Practice and is currently a member of the Innovation and Design Programme (iDP).

Papers:

DE LESSIO, M.P., WYNN, D.C, and CLARKSON, P.J., (2019) Modelling the planning system in design and development, Research in Engineering Design, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp 227 - 249

KOH, E.C.Y., DE LESSIO, M.P., (July 2018) Fixation and distraction in creative design: the repercussions of reviewing patent documents to avoid infringement, Research in Engineering Design, Vol. 29, Issue 3, pp 351 – 366

DE LESSIO, M.P., CARDIN, M.A., ASTAMAN, A. and DJIE, V. (2015) A Process to Analyze Strategic Design and Management Decisions Under Uncertainty in Complex Entrepreneurial Systems, Systems Engineering, Vol. 18, No. 6, pp 604 – 623

- Dr. Chang Sun

- Dr. Junfei Hu

- Dr. Elizaveta Kuznetsova

Research Associates and Engineers

-  Yixin Jiang

-  Howard K.-H. Yue

-  Mingzhen Diao

Doctoral Students

Sixiang Zhao