Engineering Management Hosts Emergent Risks Workshop

Old Dominion University will host a half-day discussion about the opportunities modeling and simulation may provide in analyzing and mitigating emergent risks in areas ranging from sea level rise to homeland security.

Experts from in and outside ODU will attend the half-day panel discussion Nov. 9 in the university's engineering building, Kaufman Hall, Room 247.

The event is being hosted by the Batten College of Engineering and Technology's Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, and funded by the Faculty Development Grant of Dean Oktay Baysal.

The term emergent risk is used to describe risks that are poorly understood, but are expected to grow greatly in significance.

The goal of the discussion will be to benchmark current practices on how M&S is being used to manage emergent risks, as well as to identify potential research activities that could yield better application of M&S in addressing those risks.

William A. (Skip) Stiles, Jr. of the environmental advocacy group Wetlands Watch will address challenges of climate change and sea level rise.

Barry Ezell, research associate professor at ODU's Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC), will speak on M&S and risk in homeland security.

Holly Handley, assistant professor in engineering management in Batten College, will address evaluating emergent risks in humans and organizations using M&S.

Gnana Bharathy, professor and research analyst at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak about M&S in assessing emergent risks.

The seminar will conclude with a panel discussion from 11:30 a.m.-12 p.m., where there will be an attempt to develop synergistic collaboration among the participants.

Eventually, the organizers hope to develop a "blueprint" on how researchers and academics on both M&S and risk analysis can work together toward providing solutions to problems that affect everyone.

In addition to the sessions in Kaufman Hall, where refreshments will be served, participants are also invited to participate via Web, at http://connect.odu.edu/mmrisk2010/.

This article was posted on: November 4, 2010