Engineering Systems Division

Planes near the runway at Gardermoen airport near Oslo, Norway

Some ESD research in critical infrastructures focuses on the development of mechanisms to allocate airport and airspace resources. (Image courtesy of sunny256 on Flickr.)


The Engineering Systems Division at MIT operated from 1998 to June 30, 2015. Many subjects formerly offered by ESD continue in other academic units at MIT including the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS); Engineering Management (EM); and Supply Chain Management (SCM).

ESD courses and this page remain on OCW as an archival record of the program.

In the MIT Engineering Systems Division, students aim to solve complex sociotechnical problems by integrating approaches based on engineering, management, and social sciences—using new framing and modeling methodologies.

They learn from faculty drawn from departments throughout the School of Engineering, as well as from the MIT Sloan School of Management and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Students also participate in and benefit from the innovative academic and research partnerships ESD forges with industry and government.

Designing systems requires not only technological and analytical skills, but also knowledge of public policy issues and awareness of societal needs, tastes, and preferences. Because of the aggressive rate of change and the challenge of scaling systems in size, scope, and complexity, ESD promotes the development of new approaches, frameworks, and theories to analyze and design these systems.

ESD faculty and students work on issues of national and international importance through a range of relationships forged with industry, government and academia.


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Engineering Systems Division Courses

Archived Engineering Systems Division Courses

Some prior versions of courses listed above have been archived in OCW's DSpace@MIT repository for long-term access and preservation. Links to archived prior versions of a course may be found on that course's "Other Versions" tab.

Additionally, the Archived Engineering Systems Division Courses page has links to every archived course from this department.