Rate My Professor Susan Ferreira

Dr. Susan Ferreira serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington and is the founding Director of the Systems Engineering Research Center there. With over 17 years of prior industry experience as a systems engineer specializing in complex software-intensive systems within the aerospace and defense sectors, she worked for prominent organizations including Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Motorola, and Northrop Corporation. Dr. Ferreira earned her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Arizona State University in 2002, along with M.S. and B.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering from the same institution. During her time at Arizona State University, she received the Motorola/Arizona State University Corporate Leader’s Fellowship. In her industry roles, she was awarded for key contributions to systems engineering practices and for significantly improving her organization's software process maturity.

Dr. Ferreira's research interests center on systems engineering, including systems engineering process modeling and simulation, systems thinking, requirements engineering, architecture, and systems engineering strategy, with particular emphasis on systems of systems and complex software-intensive systems. Her broader research encompasses complex systems and systems of systems modeling and analysis, risk management, sustainability, ontologies, and the investigation of new applications for systems engineering. She has authored influential publications such as 'Understanding the effects of requirements volatility in software development projects' (Journal of Systems and Software, 2009), 'Applying systems thinking to assess sustainability in healthcare system of systems' (International Journal of System of Systems Engineering, 2011), 'Developing Systems Engineering Ontologies' (2007), 'Systems Engineering Success Factors for Capturing Contracts' (Systems Engineering, 2015), and 'Opportunities to apply systems engineering to healthcare interprofessional education' (Frontiers in Medicine, 2023). Additionally, Dr. Ferreira has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Systems and Software since 2006, contributing to the advancement of scholarly work in the field.