Stevens Institute of Technology
Faculty Member, Systems and Enterprises
Associate Professor and Program Chair
http://www.socio-technical.org
About
Dr. Ali Mostashari is the Director of the Infrastructure Systems Program and the Director of Center for Complex Adaptive Sociotechnological Systems (COMPASS) at Stevens Institute of Technology, where he also serves as an Associate Professor at the School of Systems and Enterprises.
Together with Prof. Matthias Finger (EPFL, Switzerland), Dr. Mostashari is the co-lead of the Intelligent Governance of Large-scale Urban Systems (IGLUS) Project, a consortium of 16 universities in 16 major megacities across five continents studying the future of urban systems and leveraging information technology and embedded sensor networks to provide better services to citizens worldwide.
Dr. Mostashari serves as the Co-Chair of the Global Conference on Systems and Enterprises and is a member of International Council for Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Systems/Technology, Management and Policy from MIT, a Master of Science in Civil Engineering/Transportation from MIT, a Master of Science in Technology and Policy from MIT, a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering/Biotechnology with a minor in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska, a Graduate Certificate in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering/Energy Systems from Sharif University of Technology.
Dr. Mostashari's scholarly interests include complex sociotechnological systems such as the cognitive/smart power grid, transportation and energy infrastructure systems and complex social/organizational systems. He teaches courses on Systems Engineering Research Methods, Infrastructure Systems and Dynamic Modeling of Systems and Enterprises. During his time at Steven, Dr. Mostashari has served as a Principal and co-Principal investigator on major research grants related to port infrastructure resilience, cognitive enterprises and agile systems engineering concept of operations. He is the author of more than 35 peer reviewed journal and conference papers and has authored or co-authored published and forthcoming books on Stakeholder-Assisted Modeling of Complex Sociotechnical Systems, Science of Sociotechnical Networks and Critical Infrastructure Resilience. He has contributed multiple book chapters on various aspects of complex systems, sustainable development, energy and environment.
From 2004-2008, Dr. Mostashari served as a strategic advisor to the Assistant Secretary General for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He lead an oversight and performance management function for over $1.1 billion in annual development project portfolio in Africa and played a key role on various strategic initiatives at UNDP, including the Strategic Plan 2008-2011, the Enterprise Risk Management initiative, the Results-Based Management working group, the Balanced Scorecard working group and many others. From 2004-2006 Ali served as the Lead Project Manager for the UNDP ARMADA Initiative, that increased development project delivery in the continent from $380 million to over $922 million within two years.
In 2007 he was selected as a Asia 21 Young Leader. He has been nominated by the UNDP Assistant Secretary General for Africa for the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders 2008 award. Ali was selected as a top finalist of UNDP's Leadership Development Programme from over 7000 applicants from 78 countries worldwide.
From 2001-2005 Ali served as a doctoral researcher on Sustainable Development, Energy and Transportation at MIT working with Prof. Mario Molina (Nobel laureate in Chemistry 1995), Prof. Joseph Sussman (the U.S. National Academy of Engineering) and Prof. Lawrence E. Susskind, where he was awarded the Martin Family Fellowship for Sustainable Development.
From 1999-2001 he worked as a research assistant at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Nebraska. He also as a junior process engineer at Sima Chemical Industries from 1998-1999.