When
Thursday, November 21, 2024 - 2:00 p.m. (MST)
Rich Morales
U.S. Army Brigadier General (retired)
Professor of the Practice, School of Engineering
Brown University
"Creating Value by Linking, Leading and Learning"
ENGR 301
Abstract: Join retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Rich Morales as he delves into the transformative power of systems thinking in leadership and engineering design. Since joining Brown Engineering's Innovation Management and Design Engineering programs in 2023, Morales has applied his extensive military, academic and organizational leadership expertise to engage and inspire students in his Systems Thinking course. This seminar will explore Morales' approach to developing leaders across diverse contexts, emphasizing competency, trust, and effectiveness and demonstrating how various situations require adaptable, reflective leadership strategies.
Morales will highlight how systems thinking goes beyond traditional engineering by addressing complex, interconnected challenges that impact design and decision-making. Through real-world examples, he illustrates how systems are dynamic and require continuous iteration and the consideration of diverse perspectives. Attendees will gain insights into designing and optimizing systems for improved organizational performance, whether in engineering, policy, or cross-sector collaborations. Morales' experience—from military operations to serving at the White House and research centers—underscores his ability to link theory and practice to drive meaningful change and value creation.
Bio: Rich Morales is a professor of the practice of Innovation Management and Design Engineering at Brown University, where he leads systems analysis efforts and is a faculty advisor to the university's formula-style racecar, baseball team and its veterans. Morales leverages his innovation, strategy, and systems integration research and applies multi-disciplinary lenses to understand complex problems better. He explores value creation through collaboration, the link between leading and learning, and applying systems tools to improve organizational performance across sectors. He chaired the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point and managed a multi-million-dollar, multi-sector research effort. Morales consults, advises, speaks, and writes on strategy, decision-making and organizational alignment.
Morales is a principal investigator for a team based out of the Notre Dame-IBM Ethics Lab: Enhancing Human-AI Collaboration and Policy in Emergency Response: Ethical Deployment of AI-Enabled Drones. He was awarded a Hazeltine Innovation Award at Brown for his work on Data-driven Sustainability in Fabrication: Reframing the Industrial Ecology of Teaching Design and an NSF Sustainability Seed grant in support of research materials and publication of his team's work on gamification to make study of the economy and life cycle thinking fun in K-12.
Previously, he supported the National Academies of Engineering, Science, Medicine, Committee on Unmanned Aerial System (CUAS), worked on restructuring of the US Army's Headquarters in Afghanistan, supported the Africa Military Education Program and worked for Joint Forces Korea on Process Improvement and Assessment. He has collaborated with Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the Center for Army Analysis, the Wargaming and Simulations team at Lockheed Martin, and leaders at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and both Lincoln and Draper Labs at MIT.
A retired U.S. Army Brigadier General and Purple Heart recipient, he served globally, living in Europe for over a decade. He commanded U.N. peacekeepers, led a task force arrayed across 1/3 of Baghdad - recognized for valor, was aide to the Head of NASA, served two Presidents at the White House – arriving on September 6th, 2001, in the Bush Administration and later as an Executive Director and policy aide to President Obama in 2013. He led an Army unit spanning seven states. Morales is the leader in residence at the United States Coast Guard Academy.
Morales serves on national boards alongside advisors from business, academia, and nonprofits and is active in leader development efforts across all sectors. He holds a BS in aerospace engineering from West Point, a Yale MBA, graduate degrees in strategy from the Naval College of Command and Staff and National Defense University and a PhD in engineering from the University of Cambridge. He studied systems dynamics and organizational learning at MIT and is a Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executive Fellow and Yale School of Management Donaldson Fellow.