Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems by defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle. Systems engineers are responsible for the design and management of complex systems guided by systems requirements. There is a growing need for engineers who are concerned with the whole system and can take an interdisciplinary and top down approach. Systems engineers need to be problem definers, not just problem solvers, and be involved with a system through its life cycle, from development through production, deployment, training support, operation, and disposal.
Graduate programs leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are offered in systems engineering. The graduate program builds on sound engineering undergraduate education, experience, and maintains engineering specialization diversity in its graduates.
Systems engineering research is supported by interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Research areas include: model based engineering, systems architecting, modeling and simulation, complex adaptive systems, computational intelligence, human system integration and infrastructure systems. The systems engineering graduate program, with over 670 graduates since 2000, contributes to the research challenges of systems engineering imposed by today's complex, adaptive, distributed, cooperative and dynamically changing engineering systems. As one of the leading systems engineering program in the nation, Missouri S&T is the only university in the world to have four INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering) Stevens Doctoral Award recipients. Systems engineering faculty members are active leaders in systems engineering and architecting research, conferences and other professional activities and associations.