Olivier de Weck


Olivier L. de Weck is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Adjunct Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. He has authored and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is a Fellow of the INCOSE and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA. de Weck serves as the editor-in-chief for Systems Engineering, the leading journal of INCOSE. He is best known for contributions to the field of Systems Engineering in multidisciplinary design optimization, space logistics, and "ilities".

Education and research

de Weck earned a Dipl. Ing. degree in Industrial Engineering from ETH Zurich in 1993. Between 1993 and 1997 he worked as a liaison engineer and engineering program manager on the Swiss F/A-18 fighter aircraft programs. He earned both a S.M. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1999 and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Systems in 2001 from MIT. His doctoral dissertation titled "Multivariable isoperformance methodology for precision opto-mechanical systems" was supervised by David W. Miller who serves as NASA's Chief Technologist as of March 2014.
de Weck joined the MIT faculty in 2001 where he has a dual appointment with the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Engineering Systems Division. He previously served on the National Research Council Committee on Cost Growth in NASA Earth and Space Science Missions and as the Executive Director of the MIT Production in the Innovation Economy Study. he serves as the co-director of the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at KACST and MIT. he serves as the faculty director of the MIT-Switzerland program.
de Weck leads the Strategic Engineering Research Group which emphasizes "the process of architecting and designing complex systems and products in a way that deliberately accounts for future uncertainty and context in order to maximize their lifecycle value." Past research has been sponsored by organizations such as NASA, DARPA, Xerox, and BP.
de Weck developed or supervised development of a number of methods and tools including:
In January 2017 de Weck started a two-year professional leave of absence from MIT to serve as the Senior Vice President for Technology Planning and Roadmapping at Airbus Group in Toulouse, France.

Awards and honors

de Weck co-authored a book presenting the argument for Engineering Systems as a new discipline:
He appears in videos discussing the need for and technical challenges of interplanetary space exploration:
and is quoted in media coverage of research to use planetary bodies such as the moon as intermediate in-situ sources of propellants and other resources:
He has also published many articles in professional and academic publications such as:
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