QUICK LINKS
- Certificate Program in
Civil Infrastructure and Security Engineering- Program Description
- Program Requirements
- M.S. CIE
- Admission Requirements
- Graduate Certificate in Design and Inventive Engineering
- Program Description
- Program Requirements
- M.S. CIE
- Admission Requirement
- More Information
Certificate Programs
The CEIE Department currently offers two graduate certificate programs.
Certificate Program in
Civil Infrastructure
and Security Engineering
Program Description
The graduate certificate in Civil Infrastructure and Security Engineering is a professional program that is appropriate for civil infrastructure (transportation, water and wastewater, utilities, etc.) owners and operators, designers, planners, maintenance staff, and other technical workers within the public and private sectors, who are responsible for improving facility and equipment performance, reliability, security, efficiency, and management practices.
New approaches to civil infrastructure problems are emerging that use traditional civil engineering domain knowledge, in the context of information technology with a systems approach, to analyze the complexity of and interaction among various infrastructure components and their performance. Currently, the most important challenge of infrastructure engineering is to improve the quality of stewardship, which falls far short of public expectations, and to improve immediately the security of critical civil infrastructure. The Civil Infrastructure and Security Engineering Certificate is intended to respond uniquely to the need for broad training in the holistic/systems approach to the long-term management of infrastructure, with specific attention to risk and vulnerability assessments, and to creative solutions to providing improved system security. The certificate program is flexible and can be tailored to the needs of students within the infrastructure engineering community, but is also intended to be responsive to the needs of infrastructure owners, operators, and other technical staff.
Program Requirements
The certificate program consists of 15 credits (five courses), selected from certificate program courses and elective courses. The certificate courses are aimed at building the foundations of asset management methods based on a holistic/systems approach. The certificate program courses consist of:
- One core course, CEIE 680, Introduction to Infrastructure and Security Engineering (3 credits)
- A minimum of two of the following specific sector courses:
- CEIE 681 Security of Structural Systems (3 credits)
- CEIE 683 Water and Wastewater Systems Security (3 credits)
- CEIE 686 Transportation System Security and Safety (3 credits)
The remaining elective credits must be selected from the following course listing:
- CEIE 510 Geographical Information Systems in Engineering
- CEIE 511 Introduction to Design and Inventive Engineering
- IT 894 Design and Inventive Engineering
- CEIE 670 Civil Engineering Decision Methods and Tools
- CEIE 671 Best Engineering Management Practices
- CEIE 685 Civil Engineering Information Management
- CEIE 690 Special Topics (depends on the topic; requires coordinator approval)
- PUBP 710 Pricing, Management, and Privatization of Public Assets
- PUAD 640 Public Policy Process
- PUAD 661 Public Budgeting Systems
Selection of courses is subject to the approval of the certificate coordinator to ensure cohesiveness and compatibility. Some courses may have prerequisites for which the student must qualify or seek a waiver from the appropriate instructor. A cumulative GPA of 3.000 is required, and no more than one course with a grade of C may be applied toward the certificate.
M.S. in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
To earn the M.S. degree, with a specialization in infrastructure management, students would complete an additional 12 credits of course work, a 3-credit project, and a minimum of 10 graduate seminars approved by the CEIE department for the degree program.
Admission Requirements
Potential candidates should have a bachelor's degree in Engineering, Architecture, Mathematics, Science, or other related technical field, and must also be computer literate. Candidates should inquire with the certificate coordinator for details of program planning. Courses are offered in late afternoon and evening and are particularly suitable for part-time students.
Certificate in Discovery, Design, & Innovation
Program Description
The new Graduate Certificate Program in Discovery, Design, and Innovation responds to the growing need for persons having special training in methods for enhancing our imaginative, inventive, or creative capabilities. In industrial, military, and governmental organizations great reliance is placed on the ability of engineers and others to provide innovative solutions to problems of growing complexity that now confront us as we enter the 21st century.
This certificate program has been designed to provide students with a balanced understanding of the intimate relationship between the processes of discovery and invention and the reliance of both processes on imaginative or creative thought. Although our imaginative and creative capabilities are not well understood presently, there is a vast and exciting literature emerging in many disciplines that concerns these human capabilities.
Although many remarkable innovations surrounds us, the great complexity of problems we now face threatens to outstrip the innovative and imaginative capabilities with which we have been endowed by nature. Naturally, we seek to devise methods for enhancing these capabilities, and, we often turn to computers for assistance in generating new engineering designs. Indeed, this has been one of the major emphases in research conducted by the faculty members who will be associated with this new certificate program. Many of our past and current graduate students in the School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University have shared these interests and have actively participated in this research.
One of our objectives in offering this certificate program is to encourage more students to share in the exciting work now in progress, with the goal of enhancing our abilities to generate new and more suitable engineering designs that are now required in many different contexts.
Program Requirements
To obtain the certificate in Discovery, Design, and Innovation, candidates must select from the following courses, for a total of at least 15 credits. Requires of all students are the following courses:
- IT 944 The Process of Discovery and Its Enhancement in Engineering Applications
- IT 894 Design and Inventive Engineering
- SYST 520 Systems Design and Integration
Students must also select two courses from the following (6 credits):
- CEIE 670* Decision Methods and Tools
- CEIE 601* Infrastructure Modeling
- SYST 573 Decision and Risk Analysis
- STAT 664/SYST 664 Bayesian Inference and Decision Analysis
- INFS 781/STAT 781 Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
- STAT 652 Statistical Inference
- STAT 700 and 701 Multivariate Statistics and Data Analysis
- OR 671/SYST 672 Judgment and Choice Processing and Decision Making
- IT 819 Computational Models for Probabilistic Inference
- CS 785 Knowledge Acquisition and Problem Solving
Admission Requirements
The program is available to students who hold master's degrees in engineering and scientific disciplines, or who are currently in graduate status in such programs. Students may pursue the certificate concurrently with any of the graduate programs in the School of Information Technology and Engineering; however the certificate is not awarded until all its requirements have been completed.
More Information
For more information about this certificate, contact:
Tomasz Arciszewski, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department
of Civil, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering.
Phone: 703-993-1513
Fax: 703-993-1521
Home Page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~tarcisze/
- or -
David Schum, Ph.D.,
Professor, Department of Systems Engineering and Operations Research.
Phone: 703-993-1694
Fax: 703-993-1521