 Maya Abou Zeid By Maya Abou Zeid, Ph.D.
From 2007 to 2009, Maya was the lead MIT educational coordinator in MIT Portugal’s Transportation Systems focus area and worked with MIT and Portuguese faculty to organize and evaluate that group’s CTIS and PhD Programs. She earned her PhD in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the summer of 2009. Her thesis was on transportation modeling; specifically, developing methods to measure travel well-being. Maya is now on the faculty of her undergraduate alma mater, the American University in Beirut.
Integrating education and research is a major objective of the MIT Portugal Program’s Transportation Systems Focus Area. One example of successful integration is the Engineering System Design course taught this past year at MIT by Professor Joseph Sussman, which drew on MIT Portugal research on high-speed rail (HSR).Engineering System Design (course 1.041/ESD.04) is a class offered jointly between the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division at MIT. Intended for juniors (third-year undergraduates), its focus is on helping students to think in a broad manner about complex systems that operate in a socio-technical environment, and to develop an understanding of how every aspect fits together – including networks, operations, financing and stakeholders. MIT Portugal's High-Speed Rail Research A major component of the course is a class project that traditionally has been linked to ongoing research at MIT. This year, it involved MIT Portugal Program research on the development of a high-speed rail system for Portugal that would enhance intercity transportation as well as link Portugal to the rest of the European Union. Two groups of 15 students each produced independent designs with different approaches.
To design the HSR system, the class used the CLIOS (Complex, Large-Scale, Interconnected, Open, Sociotechnical Systems) process developed by Professor Sussman and his graduate students over the years to study complex systems. CLIOS consists of three phases: (1) representation, a qualitative stage in which students try to understand the interrelationships within the system and identify critical design issues, goals and objectives of the program, as well as opportunities; (2) design, evaluation, and selection, whereby students think about fundamental design decisions, areas of major uncertainties, stakeholders, etc., and devise a set of strategic alternatives using quantitative methods, such as benefit-cost analysis or cost-quality trade-offs, eventually selecting one bundle of alternatives for implementation; and (3) implementation, an examination of institutional and other implementation-related issues. In this class, the first two phases were considered in-depth. The two groups of students produced reports that covered all the phases of the development of an HSR system for Portugal, including network configuration, construction, demand estimation, operations, environmental and other effects, financing and sequence of investments, organizational support, intermodality issues and access of the HSR to Portugal’s new airport, and benefit-cost analysis. Students learned a great deal about a structured process for looking at complex system design. They also expanded their teamwork, organization and presentation skills as a result of having worked in their teams over a period of seven weeks. Preparing the Case Study The preparation of the HSR case study drew on a great deal of domain knowledge at MIT. It involved several graduate research and teaching assistants (David Uniman, Travis Dunn) as well as a visiting Portuguese student at MIT (Diana Leal, from Coimbra). The course’s graduate assistants developed a substantial database (all data needed for the case study) from public documents, and students made use of Google Earth to lay out the network and estimate costs. Preparing and developing this case study presented a number of challenges. Because the HSR system does not yet exist, the case study required beginning with basic concepts and then putting all the pieces together. (There was not enough time for students to work on the implementation phase of the CLIOS process.) Adding Value via MIT Portugal Research According to Professor Sussman, “teaching this material presents some challenges for the students, but the idea of getting them to think broadly and make them understand feedback in a system is important.” Despite the challenges, he adds, courses like this one, in which research and education are integrated, create valuable opportunities for students – and demonstrate one of the ways in which the MIT Portugal Program contributes directly to education at MIT. Professor Sussman says he hopes the case study will prove to be a model for the development of other MIT Portugal-related case studies in other courses, and urges his colleagues to consider using MIT Portugal research in their teaching. (Read a fall 2008 profile of Maya Abou Zeid.) | 
