Executive Committee Candidate

Biography

Ariela Sofer is Associate Dean for Administration and Faculty Affairs of the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University. Prior to that (2002-2017) she served as Chair of the Systems Engineering and Operations Research Department at Mason. Dr. Sofer is coauthor of the text- book “Linear and Nonlinear Optimization” McGraw Hill, 1996 and SIAM Books 2008, coeditor of three volumes, author /coauthor of over 40 publications, and author of a Chapter in the IFEES-sponsored book “Rising to the Top.”  Dr. Sofer was elected Fellow of INFORMS in 2016, and Fellow of IISE in 2018.

Dr. Sofer is the former Director of Academic Matters (2017-2020) on the Board of Directors of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). She has also served as Secretary of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) from 2014-2017, and as Vice President for Sections and Societies of the Institute of Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). She has also served as Chair of the Association of Chairs of Operations Research Departments (ACORD), as Chair of the INFORMS Computing Society, and as Secretary/Treasurer of the SIAM Special Interest Group on Optimization.

Rationale

My hope is that my years of experience as an engineering educator and as a leader, first as chair of an engineering department with a growing undergraduate program, and more recently as an associate dean within my school, will serve and promote the IFEES mission and objective.

As Associate Dean I am very involved in the mentoring of faculty, and I am particularly interested in approaches for mentoring and nurturing young and mid-level engineering faculty from different cultures and diverse backgrounds.  Increasing the diversity of our educators helps increase the diversity of our students.  And in turn this helps increase the diversity among the global community of engineers. 

As a systems engineer, I am particularly interested in promoting systems-wide holistic thinking among engineers worldwide and believe that every engineer should learn how to deal with complexity. Systems thinking is also an important foundation of Peace Engineering, which aims to plan for our planet’s sustainable future through the application of system-level thinking in science and engineering. This an area where IFEES has been, and should continue to be a strong leader. 

I have had many years of service and leadership within engineering professional societies, including on the Boards of INFORMS, IISE, and INCOSE.   Within IFEES, I am currently completing my second year on the Executive Committee.   I have served for three years on the Committee of the Duncan Fraser Global Award for Excellence in Engineering Education, including this past year as its chair. Through the many nominations I have reviewed over this time, I have had the wonderful opportunity to learn about the myriad different ways engineering educators around the world are contributing to their specific educational challenges, and this has greatly broadened my perspective on how IFEES as an organization can support engineering education globally. 

I am submitting my nomination for another two years on the IFEES Executive Committee with the fervent hope that my experience and enthusiasm will contribute to the advancement of engineering education worldwide.   I vow to serve the organization with dedication and transparency.