Richard Campbell (far left), Melissa Polverini, David Tellet and Benjamin Miller

August 3, 2004

By Ann Overton

Producing models of two complex systems, each with very different results, were the capstone projects for 16 students in the 2004 accelerated master’s program, a collaboration between the systems and information engineering department in U.Va.’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration.

Students in this program traditionally work full-time jobs during the week and meet in Charlottesville every other weekend for their class meetings at Darden. The accelerated master’s program emphasizes both business and engineering skills, primarily for technical professionals and managers, and includes courses in business strategy and functionality combined with mathematics and computer modeling.

The first team designed a system that would monitor the development of virtually any type of new technology anywhere in the world. The second group, looking closer to home, developed a system to determine the benefits of creating a mental health court for the City of Charlottesville.

The system to monitor the creation of technologies around the globe, known as TWS, or technology watch system, focused on ensuring that the processes within this complex system would behave as expected and that an analyst could easily interpret those functions. The students worked with a contractor developing the system for the U.S National Ground Intelligence Center, based in Charlottesville. Through their modeling, the students concluded that TWS is indeed a capable technology forecasting system.

Five of the eight team members are in the military, the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA): Monica Baker, Robin Belen, Darren Harvey, Susan Kingbury and David Tellet. The other team members were John Humphrey, Ukrops; Ben Miller, North American Management; and Melissa Polverini, Govolution Inc.

As a follow-up to the 2003 capstone project that studied the viability for a city drug court, the City of Charlottesville requested a similar study to determine whether a mental-health court would work within the city’s criminal justice system. As part of this study, the students determined that such a new “diversion option” within the court system would in fact be of value because it would break the cycle that worsening mental illness has on criminal behavior.

The team members concluded that the rate of criminal recidivism, or backsliding, is higher for the mentally ill and that a mental health court would provide treatment options separate from the general criminal court system.

Representatives from the City of Charlottesville and its court system attended the team’s presentation and praised the members’ efforts on this project. Team members included: Ralston Mitchell and Steve Simmons, both of Lockheed Martin; Rick Campbell and Mike Shadid, both of MITRE Corp.; Ryan Boulais, Northrup Grumman; Reed Kuhn, Directed Technologies; Ameet Nayak, Oracle Corp.; and Eric Stohr, BAE Systems.

Donald E. Brown, chair of the systems and information engineering department, said the accelerated master’s degree program takes a systems approach to business management.

“ It is ideally suited for working professionals with technical degrees who want to master advanced analytical skills for career advancement in technology management,” Brown added.