Personal-Narrative:Azad Madni

About Azad Madni

Azad Madni, an IEEE Life Fellow, was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2002 “for contributions to systems engineering technology for enterprise design and enterprise process management.” He received a B.S., M.S. (1971), and Ph.D. (1978) in Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a University Professor of Astronautics, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in the Viterbi School of Engineering in the University of Southern California.

Madni is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 2023 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal “for pioneering contributions to model-based systems engineering, education, and industrial impact using interdisciplinary approaches.” Other IEEE awards include the 2021 IEEE-USA George F. McClure Citation of Honor; the 2021 IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society's Judith A. Resnik Space Award; the 2020 IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Norbert Wiener Outstanding Research Award; the 2020 IEEE-USA Entrepreneur Achievement Award; and the 2017 IEEE SMC System Science and Engineering Award.

About the Interview

AZAD M. MADNI: An Interview Conducted by Tanya Steinhauser, IEEE History Center, 21 July 2023.

Personal Narrative #003 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Copyright Statement

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It is recommended that this personal narrative be cited as follows:

Azad M. Madni, a personal narrative conducted on 21 July 2023 by Tanya Steinhauser, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ USA.

Interview

INTERVIEWEE: Dr. Azad M. Madni

INTERVIEWER: Tanya Steinhauser

DATE: 21 July 2023

PLACE: Virtual

Steinhauser:

I’m Tanya Steinhauser at IEEE. I’m going to be interviewing you for a firsthand oral history but [00:00:20] not a full oral history. Just general topics. It’s going to be a little shorter than it normally would be. The first thing I’m going to ask you about is your family background. Can you tell us a little bit about your family background?

Madni:

Sure. I grew up in [00:00:40] Bombay, India, in the1950s and 1960s. My father was a prolific writer, my mother was a homemaker, and my uncle, who had a very significant role in my life, was an artist. [00:01:00] I grew up in an artistic family, but I ended up in engineering, so you might ask how is that possible. Well, it turns out that growing up in India in those days, it was pretty much a given that students who were strong in math and science would go into engineering, okay, so that’s how it [00:01:20] happened. However, given that I had a family with an artistic background, I had private tuition in fine arts. I actually grew up fairly accomplished as a fine artist in watercolors, , and acrylics, and pastels,, So, I had kind of a dual interest. [00:01:40] The way I describe myself now is that engineering is my profession, and I’m passionate about it, but while growing up, I was very, very passionate about art. Then art became essentially my avocation or hobby, and engineering became my [00:02:00] profession. I attended St. Mary’s high school, a Jesuit high school, and then I attended St. Xavier’s College for two years of science education. At that time, I heard, President John F. Kennedy’s We go to the Moon speech and that [00:02:20] really inspired me and had a lot to do with my deciding to pursue aerospace as a career, and specifically engineering as the way to make a contribution. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell, a little bit about my background. Anything else you need about my background, I’m happy to provide.

Steinhauser:

[00:02:40] Great. No, that was excellent because it dives into a lot of other questions that I have for you. Can you talk a little bit more about your uncle? And was he your influence, as far as art? Did, did he encourage you to pursue art as a career, or was he pushing you to do [00:03:00] engineering?

Madni:

Actually, neither my father nor my uncle pushed me into anything. My father was my creative influence, in terms of writing because that’s where I got my writing skills from. And my uncle was my inspiration in fine arts because that’s where I got my inspiration from. But neither pushed me to do [00:03:20] anything. They basically wanted me to pursue my dreams, and they were fully supportive of me.

Steinhauser:

That’s amazing. When did you come over to the United States?

Madni:

I came to the U.S. in 1965. I was still a teenager, probably in my final year of my [00:03:40] teens. I came as an undergraduate to study engineering at UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles]. After graduation, I was fortunate to land a full-time job in engineering when the country was in an economic downturn. While working full-time, I completed my master’s degree. [00:04:00] Then I needed to get a green card to continue to stay in the country and work in the U.S. At that time, the only option available to get a green card was to pursue a doctorate, with proof of two-year self-support. So, I had to take myself off of the job that I had and go back and [00:04:20] pursue a doctorate, which I did. Two years into the doctorate program, I did get my permanent residence, which allowed me to stay here permanently and seek full-time employment again. As good luck would have it, I landed my dream job at Rockwell International, to work on the NASA space shuttle program. [00:04:40] I made the most of that opportunity and was able to make a significant contribution to the shuttle, and specifically in terms of model-based testing of shuttle navigation system performance. It turns out that many years later. in fact, it was 2021.that I was honored by the IEEE Aerospace and [00:05:00] Electronic Systems [Society] with the [IEEE AESS] Judith A. Resnick Award for excellence in space engineering. So, that’s kind of like an early snapshot.

A couple of other things that I wanted to say was I grew up in a culture of storytelling. Like most countries, storytelling [00:05:20] is part of the culture, but in India, it was particularly prominent because we have monsoon seasons. In the monsoon seasons, schools are closed and the best you can do is entertain yourself. The way we did it, we regaled ourselves with telling stories to each other, so I grew up naturally storytelling. It turned out, very [00:05:40] interestingly, even at school when asked a question, our teachers would answer with stories. I kind of grew up in a culture, and storytelling was kind of baked into my DNA, and it has stayed with me ever [00:06:00] since. Today, I feel that it’s one of the most important skills that an engineer should have, just like system modeling or simulation. Storytelling should be a part of that to get your point across. We can talk more about that as you ask me further questions, but that’s kind of a quick thumbnail sketch of my early [00:06:20] education in the U.S.

Steinhauser:

Yes, that’s great. Okay. Let’s move on. You talked about what attracted you to science, and technology, and engineering. You said a little bit about the JFK [President John F. Kennedy] speech, and that is what initially made you [interested in aerospace engineering]. [00:06:40] Were you at a fork in the road, wondering if you should pursue art or if you should pursue engineering at that time? How old were you when you saw that?

Madni:

Oh, I was, I think probably eighteen, nineteen.

Steinhauser:

So, you were already in college.

Madni:

[00:07:00] Yes, that’s when I saw that. But, no, I was not at a fork in the road because as I mentioned growing up students were pretty much conditioned to go into engineering and science or the medical profession if you were good in science in math. So, that was kind of pretty much a [00:07:20] given.

Steinhauser:

Right, and you knew how that would [be your professional direction].

Madni:

Yes, art was more or less a passion with me because I really enjoyed drawing and painting and all of the stuff. But in India, at that time, art would have been viewed as something that people did who did not succeed in engineering [00:07:40]

Steinhauser:

Of course. Understood.

Madni:

We are talking about 1960s, so that’s a whole different era.

Steinhauser:

Yes, yes, of course. Okay. So can you talk about, maybe, I think you did mention a few of your [00:08:00] greatest successes and failures that made you learn something and made you who you are today.

Madni:

Okay. When I went to work at Rockwell International, which was the prime contractor for the space shuttle, I found that [00:08:20] we were working on this major program, and people came from different disciplines, different backgrounds, different educations, different skillsets, all working with astronauts. Oftentimes, to make a connection, storytelling was a natural. We would tell stories to make our [00:08:40] point because that’s the best way to get your point across because the nice thing about sharing stories is that you establish a shared context. If you just keep presenting facts and so on, [there is no shared context.] That’s one of the main things I learned that was kind of a major lesson learned and one of the keys to my success. [00:09:00]

The failures, I would say I don’t think I had failures in the traditional sense because I had that immigrant mentality to want to succeed at all costs. But the one thing that I did was, I stretched myself too thin sometimes. I worked, [00:09:20] while going to school. I worked a couple of jobs at the same time and going through school, and that was a lot of stress. I learned that in life that you need to pace yourself. You can’t run a marathon at the pace of a sprint.

Steinhauser:

Yes, that’s good [00:09:40] advice. Let’s see. What else do I have here?

Madni:

I was with Rockwell all the way through the approach landing test and the beginning of the orbital flight test. I was one of the first few people to be hired out of UCLA [00:10:00] to work in the shuttle program as a scientist. I think it was like a real dream come true moment. Here is a kid, growing up in India, getting inspired by JFK’s speech, coming to the U.S., and then [00:10:20] working hard and essentially realizing his childhood dream of being part of the space program. That could only happen in the United States, I believe.

Steinhauser:

Yes, definitely. What led you to USC [University of Southern California]? Oh, and can you just move your hand a little bit, just so we can see your face, in case we [00:10:40] want to use this as a clip?

Madni:

Oh, okay. Yes. I didn’t know that you were actually recording my video, too. Okay, okay. That’s fine.

Steinhauser:

Oh yes. Sorry, yes. We’re recording your video, too. We won’t use a ton. We’re just going to maybe take snippets and could use them for social media and stuff.

Madni:

Oh sure, yes.

Steinhauser:

Great.

Madni:

[00:11:01] Let me pick up with, after I finished my doctorate, while I was at Rockwell International, I was actually approached by my advisor to join a startup [00:11:20] from UCLA. I did that for a couple of reasons. One, because it’s hard to say no to your advisor. But number two, I had a very long commute, going from West Los Angeles to Downey. After a while, it gets pretty tiring driving that distance; that’s forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on traffic, so [00:11:40] I took this job. It was a startup. They brought me in to kind of head R&D. The company grew successful. I eventually ended up being their executive vice president for research and development and the chief technology officer in the areas of, [00:12:00] believe it or not in those days, in artificial intelligence applications for defense and aerospace. I also worked in the area of virtual reality enabled simulation-based training. These technologies were viewed as pretty leading edge at the time. [00:12:20] The company, we, as a team, were able to take the company public.

Then I did my own startup. I did my startup [Intelligent Systems Technology, Inc.] actually with my wife, who is a fellow engineer. It was a very, very successful startup. We grew immensely in the first five years and established ourselves. We were able to [00:12:40] put all of our girls through private schools because of that job.

We had a nice research backlog and had won lots of awards, when USC approached me. [00:13:00] USC engineering faculty, and the dean approached meto come and head up the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program that was founded by Eberhardt Rechtin, the former CEO of Aerospace Corporation and the person who invented the Deep Space Network at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was [00:13:20] also a former director of DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], and a pioneer who invented the term “systems architecting,” with an I-N-G at the end. So, he had quite a reputation. After he passed, USC had a couple of people that they had as [00:13:40] interim [program directors], while they were looking for [a permanent] replacement. They approached me, and at the time, I was in two minds because I had a pretty good company going and a nice research [00:14:00] backlog. My oldest daughter, who was actually teaching at USC [at the time, spoke up], “Dad, you always wanted to be in academia. Why not do it now?” That’s how it was. I joined USC [00:14:20] as a full professor and the director of the Systems Architecting and Engineering Program, and that’s where I had much of my successes in the educational side of my career.

Of course, I continued my research. What essentially uniquely identified my research was my research was use inspired. [00:14:40] I wanted to make sure that whatever research I did would show up in the hands of people who would use it, so essentially my research was use inspired and focused on creating technology in the service of society and humanity. I mean, that has always been my calling. In fact, my dissertation was in the area of artificial limbs, prosthetics, using [00:15:00] myoelectric signals for artificial limb control. I always wanted to have a way to impact the quality of life of human beings and, and society at large.

When I came to USC, I found that USC courses, like every other course [00:15:20] in every other university in the country, tended to be stovepipes. In other words, what I meant by that is that the courses were there, and they all had good content, but none of the courses really connected to each other. It was left to the student to make the connections. I felt that I [00:15:40] could make an important advance by imparting connected knowledge to students, so therein was my transformation of the education program. It took me, I’ve been there almost fifteen years. But incrementally, I transformed the program and broke the walls and the barriers among the [00:16:00] courses, and made sure that each course had content and concepts from other related courses that they would use so that the linking of the material was done by the instructor, and by the curriculum, and the courses, and not left for the students to make those connections between those islands of knowledge. [00:16:20] After a while, I started to institutionalize that in my program. I did it the first time. Then I got other instructors to do it. It turned out that that approach had real resonance. It had real resonance with the students and with their employers.

It turned out in [00:16:40] 2016, actually, Boeing came to USC and had a special event there and gave me a lifetime achievement award [Lifetime Accomplishments Award from the Boeing Company] for my contributions to Boeing, the aerospace industry, and the nation. [In 2016], they also gave me a Visionary System Engineering Leadership Award for making these stovepipe courses transdisciplinary, [00:17:00]

What allowed me to do that, to make those connections you ask? Well, I used storytelling as the [00:17:20] main pillar of my teaching approach. I combined that with the principles from the learning sciences, which basically say that learning should be student-centric, learning should build on the prior knowledge that students have which means the knowledge would then be connected because it connects with the prior knowledge that they have, and [00:17:40] then the learning should be such that students should be able to extrapolate what they’ve learned to new problem situations. So, I made that a key tenet of my educational paradigm that came to be known as TRASEE, which stands for transdisciplinary system engineering education [00:18:00] paradigm. Eventually, I gave a whole bunch of keynotes and seminars and webinars, essentially all across international conferences in various countries to get this kind of a mindset going. It really caught on. It caught on in a big [00:18:20] way. People adopted that at top universities, like Technion [Israel Institute of Technology] in Israel. My colleague over there adopted this technology. My colleagues in the U.S. did the same. Some colleagues in India did the same. So, I felt this was very successful.

What I forgot to mention is that while I was [00:18:40] working on this whole paradigm, I wrote a book [on the subject]. The book was called Transdisciplinary Systems Engineering. The subtitle was, “Exploiting Convergence in a Hyper-Connected World.” That book was the basis for the transdisciplinary thinking and the new mindset that I wanted [00:19:00] in my students, to be able to engage with problems in the twenty-first century. It was also partially the basis for my creating the TRASEE education paradigm.

A part of me that I forgot to mention is that I have a courtesy appointment in the School of Education at USC as well. I [00:19:20] had a long history of building computer-based tools, teaching tools and teaching aids for the U.S. military for several decades. The combination of having an engineering background and an educational background really helped me to really construct TRASEE. And as you know, in 2023, [00:19:40] I received the National Academy of Engineering Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education. That’s the highest award you can get in engineering education, and that’s probably the crowning achievement of my career. I also received, as you know, the [2023 IEEE] Simon Ramo Medal in systems engineering, which is the highest [00:20:00] award you can get in systems engineering. That was a banner year for me, receiving these two awards. I’ve continued to build on the research that was rewarded by the Ramo Medal and by the educational paradigm that I continue to advance, [00:20:20] that was really the basis for the Gordon Prize. That brought me from my career in industry all the way into academia, where I’ve been now for the last fifteen years.

Steinhauser:

Yes. Wow, that’s incredible. I love that. [00:20:41] It’s all led to this moment and this year for you when everyone is recognizing your achievements, which is great. I have two questions. You started the startup with your wife.

Madni:

Yes.

Steinhauser:

[00:21:00] What kind of company was that?

Madni:

Ah, that’s a great question, actually, so let me [explain]. One of the things I had learned that, through my years of working on the shuttle program and then working for a startup and taking it public, [00:21:20] and that sort of stuff, was the role of artificial intelligence, and what role that might play. I was strongly of the belief that while AI could certainly replace repetitive and routine tasks, that the biggest value of AI was to amplify and augment [00:21:40] human intelligence, which means that AI would be used as an aide, or as an augmentation, or an amplifier of human capabilities, and not a replacement of that. That was basically my theme, and I think that in time it’s kind of borne out that that was a pretty darned good direction to pursue. The notion was very simple, [00:22:00] I felt that there were things that machines, and specifically artificial intelligence could do that humans couldn’t do, which is in perfect recall, rapid searches, reasoning with the complex data and things of that nature, which humans couldn’t do. But there were things that [00:22:20] humans could do that machines couldn’t do, which is rapidly understanding what the context is, rapidly understanding what the overall situation is, especially when you have contingencies, essentially like a broken play in basketball. What do you do when the play that you planned is not going according to plan? How do you improvise? How do you innovate? How do you [00:22:40] get yourself out of trouble?

Given that thinking, I looked upon marrying human strengths with machine strength, while circumventing their respective limitations. The company was based on creating human augmentation and human aiding technologies [00:23:00] rooted in AI technology, as well as creating educational and training simulations that exploited AI as well. These are the two areas that we focused on. We were able to apply that in a variety of contracts, including commercial contracts. The customers were the who is who in [00:23:20] defense research: DARPA, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force, NASA, the Army Research Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Homeland Security, the Missile Defense Agency, [00:23:40] TATRC, the medical arm of the U.S. Army, and the list goes on. It’s a whole bunch of aerospace companies like Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, and Hughes before that. [00:24:00] Then more recently General Motors and Cruise Automation.

Again, the common theme was how could we exploit artificial intelligence technology in a way that amplified and enhanced human performance, but at the same time, do it in a way that [00:24:20] was safe and resilient and did not produce unintended consequences that could be pretty damaging. So, when you look at the technologies that you see in AI emerging, most of the technologies that you see are really not trying to replace the human. They’re trying to really [00:24:40] augment human capability. I mean, look at these large language models, and ChatGPT, etcetera. They’re trying to offload and enhance what humans are trying to do, in terms of writing stuff and recognizing stuff, and things of that nature. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and this has been our basic theme.

I apply AI in the context of [00:25:00] model-based systems engineering, which is the use of models as a central authoritative source of truth in developing systems. The question was how can you take the different system engineering steps that you have and enhance them through artificial intelligence and [00:25:20] digital twin technologies, and things of that nature? Basically, the company was working at the cutting edge of systems engineering, artificial intelligence, and a variety of other disciplines, like cognitive psychology and sociology as a means to aid and augment the way [00:25:40] we helped humans.

Steinhauser:

Incredible. And is that company still around today?

Madni:

The company is around, but because I’m full time at USC, I’m not doing any research with the company. I do, on occasion, commissioned studies by [00:26:00] automotive companies, like General Motors and safety analysis working with people from the government, and industry, and academia. So, I do those, and I do occasional short courses in these areas. I converted the company from being a very strong R&D company, to being more of a [00:26:20] special purpose educational company that provides educational technology for senior managers and executives who don’t have the time to keep up with the pace of technology. They would like to have short courses that can demystify some of the new technologies that are coming about, so [00:26:40] they can help them with their strategic decision making. I did that, as a way of keeping the company going, but at the same time, doing something completely different.

Steinhauser:

Yes. And as far as IEEE or any other technology society you’ve belonged to, [00:27:00] how has that served you over the years. I mean between standards or anything, conferences, meetings?

Madni:

I have worked with IEEE for over forty-five years. I’m a Life Fellow, so I’ve been with IEEE for a long time. I’m active in [00:27:20] multiple societies. I’m active in the [IEEE] Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society. I’m active in the [IEEE] Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society. I’m active in the [IEEE] Computer Society. So, those three are the societies. I’m also active in IEEE Systems Council and IEEE-USA. If you take a snapshot in time, [00:27:40] I’ve served as the general chair and program chair of international conferences for IEEE. I’ve served on the boards of administrative committees for Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. I’ve served on the Fellows selection committee for multiple IEEE societies, and the IEEE Systems Council. I [00:28:00] was the cofounder and I have been the founding chair of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Model-Based System Engineering Technical Committee [IEEE SMC Technical Committee on Model-Based Systems Engineering (TC-MBSE)], which in fact received the most active committee award from IEEE SMC in 2017, in Canada. [00:28:20] I’m also active in terms of building bridges between IEEE and other societies, such as INCOSE, International Council on Systems Engineering, as well as AIAA [American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics], as well as IISE, which stands for Institute of Industrial and System [00:28:40] Engineering. Essentially, the IEEE slogan, Service for Humanity, is basically what my whole company has been about, what I have been about, and what I have been doing for a long time, as an academic and as a [00:29:00] [leader] in industry. As an aside, IEEE has the particular program that’s called IEEE Smart Village and we have started to work with people there to be able to do humanitarian projects in developing [00:29:20] countries because I was doing those before the IEEE Smart Village. I have some ongoing projects of my own; humanitarian projects in India, in the villages, to bring people out of poverty and essentially take the local craft that they have, like handicrafts or hand [00:29:40] loom industry and things like that, and make small businesses for them so that they can—and then give them training in the use of technology through portals, and stuff like that. I’m doing that through my students from India, and working with the local people there, by transitioning the technologies that I have created [00:30:00] through system engineering and through my service to IEEE and bringing it into developing areas where we can be of some help in helping the poor come out of the shadows and into having sustainable living.

Steinhauser:

That’s amazing. [00:30:20] What might you say to young people or someone who is just starting out about the opportunities and reward of choosing an engineering career?

Madni:

What I would say is that the late president [00:30:40] of the National Academy of Engineering, Chuck Vest [Charles M. Vest], had stated that this is probably the most interesting time in engineering in human history. What I would say to you is that for those interested in my field, which is systems engineering and AI, the combination, that this perhaps is the most unprecedented time in recent [00:31:00] memory where the technology is moving at a pace where we have finally a chance to make a huge difference and make a huge impact on complex problems that cannot be addressed [solely] by a single discipline. It requires this kind of interdisciplinary—transdisciplinary thinking. When I talk about those [00:31:20] problems, I’m talking about pandemic management, energy transition, climate change. All of these kinds of problems are problems that require multiple disciplines to collaborate and cooperate. These are the kinds of problems that are not solvable, in [the traditional] sense. What you do is you manage your way through these by [00:31:40] continuing to make effective tradeoffs, so that you can continue to sustain and carry the society and humanity into the future. I think that engineering is perhaps the discipline for people to pursue. I’ve always felt that engineers have been [00:32:00] great innovators, but we have not been very good marketers. We don’t connect with the audience the way other disciplines do because we are not good salesmen. For example, you see the word, “science and technology” constantly used together. But you cannot get from science to technology without [00:32:20] engineering. Engineering is an integral part of that, so I’d like to make it science, engineering, and technology. Science interacts with engineering bi-directionally, and engineering provides the basis for creation of technology. So, in a sense, engineering is a central hub. An important point that I would like to make in that regard [00:32:40] is that you do not have to have every possible explanation from science to be able to make advances, innovations, and inventions in engineering. Many times, we will create technologies that have a huge impact on society and humanity, yet we cannot [00:33:00] fully explain the scientific basis of that. I mean, take an example right now, with the large language models and ChatGPT, and variants. They work, in many cases, rather well, and they will probably be a good aid to humans. Obviously, in some cases, they will take away certain jobs, which unfortunately is true of technology in general. But [00:33:20] we don’t fully understand how all those networks and all those linkages, and how all those things work. And yet we know that they’ve been providing good results. So, the point that I’m making is that engineering is a discipline that should be given the same stature as science and technology. It should really not be science and technology [00:33:40] anymore. It should be science, engineering, and technology.

Steinhauser:

Yes.

Madni:

I think that as far as students are concerned, young people are concerned, this is the time to get in on the ground floor because this is probably going to be—The next couple of decades are going to be absolutely transformational and I think [00:34:00] we have a chance to make a huge, huge difference.

Steinhauser:

Yes. So, you have faith in our young engineers, that they will be able to make the positive change for sustainability that we need to last us the next hundred years, two hundred years.

Madni:

Yes, you know, [00:34:20] the way I describe myself is the way I think that Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that it’s not that I’m optimistic. It’s that I’m a prisoner of hope. So, what I like to say is that, yes, I think we can teach [00:34:40] subject matter in terms of connected knowledge, and not in terms of stovepipe courses. We get our students to have a new mindset that is rooted in systems thinking, critical thinking, lateral, [00:35:00] associative thinking, and analogical reasoning. These are some of the skills that you need to be able to formulate problems and address them at scale, as opposed to fall into the all too very human failing of dumbing down [00:35:20] a problem so it fits a known technique that you know and applying that. When you do that, you invariably solve the wrong problem. I emphasize that in all my courses, that the job is to get into uncomfortable places when you don’t have a pat solution to a problem. Then you figure out how to frame and formulate the problem at scale, and then [00:35:40] work towards scaling up the methods that you know so that you’re able to be successful with addressing the problem at scale. And then, and then alone, would you be able to solve real world problems. That’s the way the educational paradigm is going to shift, in my opinion. I had made that shift many years ago in my program. I think students have come out with that mindset, with those leadership [00:36:00] skills, and with those interdisciplinary skills. With the ability to exploit diversity of thought, culture, and background, I think they will be able to make a difference, not just in the U.S. but globally.

Steinhauser:

That’s great. What is next for you? Are you comfortable or do you have [00:36:20] anything further in mind that you’re trying to achieve at the moment?

Madni:

Oh yes, I have a couple of major problems that I’m working on. I’m working, leveraging some of the—I’ve actually given several talks through the National Academy of Engineering and Science on these subjects. [00:36:40] I want to work on these large problems of complex socio-technical systems and how AI, systems engineering, and digital twin technology from digital engineering, can work with humanities and the social sciences to be able to address these large-scale problems so that we don’t do small [00:37:00] Band-Aids to the problem, but we can address the problem at scale. In the next ten years, I’m trying to bring all these things together to address these large-scale problems. My hope is that we can make a big difference in the large-scale problems that we don’t have a good handle on right now. I’m writing a couple of [00:37:20] books, which I hope to have done. I have a recent book coming out on deep learning. I just finished The Handbook of Model-Based System Engineering” with Norm Augustine, who is my co-editor in chief. We have essentially contributors from all over the world, about forty-six different [00:37:40] articles. This handbook is going to be a living book in the sense that the authors can go back and update their chapters every couple of years or every year, if they wanted to. It will continue to be current, and it will be the handbook that people would use, essentially the go-to place for system engineering, so the latest in system engineering, the latest in system [00:38:00] engineering thinking.

I think all these things dovetail very, very nicely with the objectives of the IEEE, in terms of trying to serve humanity. What better way to serve humanity than to try to address the complex sociotechnical problems that we have in front of us today? In fact, if you look at the National Academy of [00:38:20] Engineering and the fourteen grand challenges that they have defined, at some level or another, every one of them is a systems engineering problem. I think systems engineering is going to be taking center stage for a long time, as long as we have to deal with complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, and humans.

Steinhauser:

[00:38:40] Yes, well said. We don’t have to keep this in the recording, but I mean, we could. I’m not going to stop the recording.

Madni:

Sure.

Steinhauser:

In layman’s terms, if you will, the big picture, what is going [00:39:00] to help us get through climate change? I know that’s a very heavy question, but is there any way to explain that?

Madni:

Yes, yes. The first thing is to address the different aspects. You see, [00:39:20] climate change is being addressed by people from various specific disciplines, and I believe that this is truly a multidisciplinary, trans-disciplinary problem. To make the real advance, it’s not so much in the problem-solving area, but in the problem framing, problem formulation area, so I think that the educational [00:39:40] curriculum has to reflect that. Now the number of dimensions and the number of disciplines involved in climate change cannot possibly be taught in the timeframe of a particular four-year bachelor’s program, or even a master’s or a doctorate because there are just so many dimensions and there are so many [00:39:59] complexities. The important thing is no matter what discipline you pursue, people should be made aware of the contributions that other disciplines can make, and that’s what I’m trying to do with my courses at USC, in terms of pursuing transdisciplinary system engineering. That means I’m not trying to make people experts in every discipline because that’s not possible. I [00:40:20] am trying to make them aware of what other disciplines can provide and what other disciplines bring to the table, which when they complement engineering can really address the problem at scale. I think the curriculum has to be dramatically changed to address climate change. I think the thinking of [00:40:40] about this problem has to change. It has to be thought of that climate change is essentially a super high-level problem, a more complex problem than pandemic management. And you saw how much difficulty we experienced with pandemic management. It wasn’t because people did not have good intentions. They all did. But [00:41:00] the problem has so many dimensions to it that it’s very hard to capture all of the dimensions [and their interdependencies]. The kinds of things that you model, and how do you model these [using methods from] multiple disciplines, and how do you integrate methods from different disciplines, and how do you make sure that the assumptions you’re making are consistent across all that stuff; I think [00:41:20] these are the kinds of things that will be pursued. So, the problem formulation aspects, I think should be emphasized way more than they are today, when it comes to climate change. I also think that if the research that is being done goes hand in hand with the educational courses, I mean the courses [00:41:40] in the educational paradigm, and if the two of them can feed into each other, then I think we’ll be able to make a dent in this very difficult problem. I think it’s a worthy problem. It’s a challenging problem. It’s a problem that’s tailor made for challenging systems engineering and a specifically complex system [00:42:00] engineering. For me, it’s very near and dear to my heart.

Steinhauser:

Yes. Great answer. All that’s really left, and then I think we can wrap up is do you want to talk a [00:42:20] little bit about your personal life, and your wife, and your children, and your grandchildren?

Madni:

Oh sure. But before I do that, I’d like to share with you my vision that I present to my class, and it gets them excited, which is this: [00:42:40] if a picture is worth a thousand words and a model is worth a thousand pictures, then a story is worth a thousand models. I think storytelling is going to be a great, great, great enabler of [00:43:00] complex problems, not because it solves the problem, but because it helps frame the problem in terms of the complexities and the different dimensions that go with problems of the level of complexity of climate change. It can help people get on the same page much more quickly than they are right [00:43:20] now. I think storytelling will become, I think, a unifying theme and a skill, just like system modeling, just like simulation. I think storytelling should become a key engineering skill. So, that’s one thing that I like to say.

As far as my family situation, none of this, what I have accomplished, could have been possible without [00:43:40] my wife, Carla. She has been a rock in my family, a huge supporter, and a long-time collaborator. I mean, she’s an engineer, biomedical engineer, who got her degree from Tulane, and then came and did her work in distributed artificial intelligence at UCLA. That’s how we met. Then we worked for many [00:44:00] years together in the company where I was in a leadership position. Then years later, we got married. We have three wonderful daughters, and none of them are engineers. I didn’t try to convince them to go into engineering. I basically said, [00:44:20] find your passion, pursue it, and we are here to support you to get there. But in everything strive for excellence. Don’t settle for mediocrity. I think that my daughters have done that. We are an extremely proud of them. I have three grandchildren. [00:44:40] I have two grandsons and a granddaughter. The grandson is fifteen, and the granddaughter and the other grandson, they are still not one year old. They’re still very young. Two different daughters, yes.

Steinhauser:

Yes.

Madni:

Hopefully one of them, [00:45:00] will get into engineering and space engineering, but only if they want to. I’d like to essentially have them identify their passion, and then pursue that, and provide them with the encouragement, and education and tools to make it happen. So that’s basically the family. Of course, the part that [00:45:20] I have left out, that I think you might want to know, is that for the last forty-three years, I’ve been a care provider for my mother, who is going to be 100 years old in a few months.

Steinhauser:

Wow, incredible.

Madni:

Yes, so she lives with me, and I take care of her.

Steinhauser:

Oh, that’s so sweet. [00:45:40]

Madni:

I consider her to be the shining light and the guiding light in my life and the successes that I’ve enjoyed in my life I attribute a lot of that to her.

Steinhauser:

Yes, that’s great. I’m glad that you’re able to do that for her. I’m sure she’s [00:46:00] so grateful.

Madni:

Well, I am, too because I think you can never pay back a mother in your lifetime because what they do is unconditional love, right?

Steinhauser:

Yes.

Madni:

You do the best you can. I try to do the best I can. I try to be a good son, a good husband, and a good parent. Then, after that, I try to be a good mentor [00:46:20] to my students. That means a lot to me, to see my students succeed in academia, or industry, or whatever. I’ve had great successes. My students are in top positions all over the country, and not just here, but in other parts of the world. I’ve helped students all across the world.

This is an aside. I don’t know [00:46:40] if you want to have this as part of the recording, but the International Council on System Engineering gave me the Benefactor Award. This is only the second time they have given that award in thirty-one years. It is because of my mentorship and philanthropy all across [the globe], not just the U.S., but all across the world. I have students [00:47:00] that I’ve mentored that are all across the globe, not just in the U.S.

Steinhauser:

Yes. That’s amazing. I love that. Do you think that IEEE could provide some sort of education, when it comes to storytelling as far as like [00:47:20] resources and maybe something—

Madni:

Well, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a new journal in trans-disciplinary system engineering, under the rubric of IEEE. I’ve talked to a few colleagues. If I can get enough of a critical mass of people on board, then we will [00:47:40] probably try to start a new journal, under the auspices of IEEE.

Steinhauser:

A working group, you mean?

Madni:

Pardon me?

Steinhauser:

A Working Group, like a - - or just—

Madni:

I already have a Working Group in trans-disciplinary system engineering within IEEE, [00:48:00] in my model-based system engineering. But I’m thinking of creating potentially a formal model through a journal, where people can contribute papers in trans-disciplinary system engineering. It’s still in the early stages. I’m thinking about it. I think it might be a valuable [00:48:20] addition to the already growing arsenal of IEEE journals because IEEE has been on the mark in a variety of ways. I think it’s the premier society of engineering in the world and I think they have some very, very good leadership and [00:48:40] continuity in leadership, which is essential. I know the current president, I know the future president, and I’ve worked with past presidents. I’d like to see IEEE take on this major challenge and potentially collaborate with the National Academy of Engineering, which is the premier engineering academy in the [00:49:00] world and is doing some absolutely amazing work in addressing these grand challenges that they’ve identified. I think that a combination or a partnership of some kind, yet to be defined, between IEEE and the National Academy of Engineering, would be a wonderful, [00:49:20] thing to happen. I would love to essentially make that happen or work with both sides to try to make that happen.

Steinhauser:

Yes, that would be incredible. Storytelling overall is so important, even to IEEE’s [00:49:40] mission and current goal, which is to make IEEE more—like to have regular civilian people who aren’t in the engineering field, recognize IEEE as a name and know what it is, [00:50:00] immediately

Madni:

Absolutely. I think that you’re absolutely right. I think IEEE has a great tagline. The whole concept of service to humanity, I think that does it. But I think IEEE needs to have kind of a unifying message, in terms of how the [00:50:20] various societies work together, not just by themselves in their stovepipe, but how they work together where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That message has to come across, in terms of the fact that not only do they have a vision for how to go about [00:50:40] serving society and humanity, but they have a way forward of trying to achieve that vision. I’d like to be a part of making that vision a reality.

Steinhauser:

Yes, great. Well said. I love that. All right. Well, I think we covered everything. [00:51:00] This was amazing. What a great interview and what a great compilation of information. Your story: I love it all. I can’t wait to send the transcription to you. If we need some [00:51:20] spelling issues or if something that you said, the name of something didn’t—

Madni:

Well basically just to fix up some awkward sentences and maybe re-sequence some of the statements so that they flow better. That’s about it. I think mostly, it will be re-sequencing of some material because I took the liberty of telling my [00:51:40] story like Lord Tennyson. He would tell a story. Then he would go into a subplot, and he would dwell in that for a long time. Then he’ll come back to the main plot, but when you put it all together, it all made sense. But sometimes if you re-sequence that, it would be a whole lot better. Because I gave you a stream of consciousness, I’ll try to make it flow better for the [00:52:00] the reader.

Photo Gallery

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  Azad's Daughters, All Trojans (USC graduates)

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  Azad and his wife Clara June