Sustainable Systems Engineering

This program will be attractive to students with engineering or science degrees (either recent graduates or those with some years of industry experience) who want to develop a deep understanding of sustainability from a systems perspective and how design choices can affect sustainability outcomes. Graduates of the Sustainable Systems Engineering (SUSE) PhD program will be prepared to identify the factors that lead to negative environmental impacts; envision and evaluate design options that can mitigate environmental impacts or regenerate the environment; and anticipate how these designs will be perceived by stakeholders.  This includes systems relating to cities and communities, energy, materials, food, agriculture and biomass. Students will develop new knowledge on how to integrate principles of sustainability and regenerative design into complex systems. This interdisciplinary specialization is currently the only one of its kind in Alberta and in Canada.

Completing this program

• Courses: Topic may include Sustainability Principles in Engineering Practice, Systems Modelling, Simulation, and Analysis, Decision Making for Sustainability, Energy Systems Modelling, and Distributed Energy Sources/Remote Systems and Life Cycle Assessment.
• Professional Development Courses: Students take two professional development courses on communication styles, presentation skills and more.
• Internship: An eight-month, full-time or twelve-month, part-time paid internship. Students with extensive professional or industry experience may request an exemption from the internship; the program director will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.
• Candidacy: Students will complete both oral and written candidacy exams.
• Doctoral Courses: See courses. Selection will be discussed with the supervisor and will be based on students’ focus areas.
• Thesis: Students will be required to submit and defend an original research thesis.

Outcomes

Upon graduation, students will find themselves equipped with the knowledge and skills to define and identify design solutions to sustainability problems, consider stakeholder inputs in their evaluation and support implementation of solutions. They will also be able to identify where engineering design solutions are inadequate and broader policy interventions are needed. Their skills will support them in roles in government (e.g., modeling, public policy analysis and regulation, community planning), industry (e.g., product and process design, industrial decarbonization, strategic planning, supply chain management), and consulting (e.g., environmental and technology practices: cleantech, renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal), green communities and infrastructure, sustainable design, sustainable food, agriculture and biomass solutions).

A PhD in Sustainable Systems Engineering is usually considered a terminal degree.