Industrial Engineering Professor Recipient of Distinguished Engineering Educator Award

University Relations

Greg Parnell

Greg Parnell, professor of practice  and director of Master of Science in Operations Management program and Master of Science in Engineering Management programs, is the recipient of the 2021 Joint ASEE SED/INCOSE Outstanding Systems Engineering Educator Award.

According to the International Council on Systems Education, the award "recognizes an individual who provides/provided outstanding contributions in the field of systems engineering education and/or the education of systems engineering."

Ed Pohl, head of the Department of Industrial Engineering, stated, "With more than 30 years of contributions to and leadership in systems engineering education, it only seems appropriate that Dr. Parnell is recognized as the inaugural recipient of the ASEE SED/INCOSE Outstanding Systems Engineering Educator Award. Greg's distinguished career in systems engineering education has more than qualified him for the award."

Before joining the U of A, Parnell served as professor of systems engineering at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) from 1999-2013. Upon his retirement from West Point, he was named professor emeritus. Notably, Parnell has also served on the faculty of the U of A, the U.S. Air Force Academy, Virginia Commonwealth University and the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Parnell is the lead editor for the textbook, Decision Making for Systems Engineering and Management, which facilitated the development of the systems engineering program at West Point. That text is now in its second edition. He is also editor of Trade-off Analytics: Creating and Evaluating the Tradespace. In addition, Parnell has been instrumental in integrating decision analysis into systems engineering. He is lead author for the Decision Management section of both the current the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, A Guide for Systems Life Cycle Processes and Activities, and the current Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK). He is currently serving as the lead author of the update to the Decision Management and Systems Analysis sections of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook.

At the U of A, Parnell has taught INEG 4433 Systems Engineering and Management, a required course for Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering students, seven times during 2013-2019. The course enrollment averages about 65 undergraduate and 5 graduate students. The course is incredibly well received by the BSIE students. In senior exit interviews, they often comment that they wish they had taken the course before their most recent internship experience. In addition, the faculty coordinator of the BSIE capstone experience has indicated that the techniques taught in INEG 4433 are invaluable to capstone teams as they navigate their senior projects.

Parnell has developed and co-taught five systems engineering courses for a large financial corporation. In doing so, he helped tailor their systems engineering program to meet their unique needs. For the U of A, Parnell developed the online Master of Science in Engineering Management program that began in Fall 2017. This program already has 20 graduates and currently has more than 70 students. The engineering management master's program incorporates systems engineering into the introductory course and includes another course on Systems Thinking and Systems Engineering. Parnell directs this program and the Master of Science in Operations Management program at the U of A.