Contact Information

Post-Ph.D. Work

I'm currently working as a Research Engineer II in the Aerospace Systems Design Lab, or ASDL.  I'm helping to lead and manage projects including:

• requirements analysis for military ground vehicles
• systems-of-systems design for "smart" electricity grids
• analysis of how to strategically introduce sustainable energy options into electricity grids for specific geographic regions.

My objective in the ASDL is to grow a line of research related to more efficient and/or sustainable energy sources.  My training in the SRL has prepared me for my current position quite well!

Ph.D. Research Interests

The basic premise of my PhD research is here.  My work focuses on design for robust environmental performance amidst various types of uncertainty, especially severe uncertainty due to lack of information.  Case studies currently involve the end-of-life environmental performance of products.

Past projects have involved assessment of the multi-criteria performance (function, cost, environmental load, etc.) of designs and manufacturing operations.

My more general interests include complex systems behavior, frameworks for decision support that fairly consider economics and the environment, and the role information science and possibly ubiquitous computing might play in environmental assessments.

Publications

Ph.D. Dissertation

• Duncan, S., 2008, "Including Severe Uncertainty into Environmentally Benign Life Cycle Design Using Information-Gap Decision Theory" Ph.D. Dissertation, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, GA.  Link to abstract, and pdf of my thesis!

Master of Science Thesis

• Duncan, S., 2003, "A Mass and Energy Data Collection System to Support Environmental and Economic Monitoring of a Coating Line in Carpet Manufacturing," M.S. Thesis, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Atlanta, GA.  Link to abstract.

Journal Articles 

• Reap, J., Roman, F., Duncan, S. and Bras, B. (2008)  "A Survey of Unresolved Problems in Life Cycle Assessment - Part 1: Goal & Scope and Inventory Analysis". International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (IJLCA).  Currently "Online First", and eventually in print in 2008.  Part 1 of 2.
  
• Reap, J., Roman, F., Duncan, S. and Bras, B. (2008)  "A Survey of Unresolved Problems in Life Cycle Assessment - Part 2:  Impact Assessment and Interpretation". International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (IJLCA).  Currently "Online First", and eventually in print in 2008.  Part 2 of 2.
• Duncan, S.J., Bras, B., and Paredis, C.J.J. (2008), "An Approach to Robust Decision Making under Severe Uncertainty in Life Cycle Design."  International Journal of Sustainable Design, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.45-59. (Abstract)
  
• Duncan, S., Paredis, C. J. J., and Bras, B. (2006). "Applying Information-Gap Decision Theory to a Design Problem having Severe Uncertainty" SAE 2006 Transactions Journal of Materials and Manufacturing (Paper 2006-01-0273).  (Abstract)
  Also published in: Reliability and Robust Design in Automotive Engineering 2006 (SAE Special Publication SP-2032).

• ASME Journal of Mechanical Design - Tentative topic of my article: Extending Techniques from Info-Gap Decision Theory to Assess Multiple Severely Uncertain Variables.

Conference Presentations and Papers

• Duncan, S., Paredis, C. J. J., and Bras, B. (2007). "Applying Info-Gap Theory To Remanufacturing Process Selection Affected By Severe Uncertainty" 2007 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE). November 11-15, 2007, Seattle, WA, USA.  Paper#: DETC2007-43608 (Abstract)
• Duncan, S., Aughenbaugh, J. M., Paredis, C. J. J., and Bras, B. (2006). "Considering the Info-Gap Approach to Robust Decisions Under Severe Uncertainty in the Context of Environmentally Benign Design" Presented at the ASME International Design Engineering and Technical Conferences and Computers and Information Engineering Conference, Design for Manufacturing and Life Cycle Conference. September 10-13, 2006, Philadelphia, PA, USA.  Paper#: DETC2006-99486 (Abstract)
• Aughenbaugh, J.M., Duncan, S., Paredis, C.J.J., and Bras, B. (2006), "A Comparison of Probability Bounds Analysis and Decision Analysis in Environmentally Benign Design and Manufacture."  Presented at the ASME International Design Engineering and Technical Conferences and Computers and Information Engineering Conference, Design Automation Conference.  September 10-13, 2006, Philadelphia, PA, USA.  Paper#: DETC2006-99230 (Abstract) (Draft Paper)
  
• Duncan, S.J., Bras, B., and Paredis, C.J.J. (2006), "An Approach to Robust Decision Making under Severe Uncertainty in Life Cycle Design."  13th Annual CIRP International Conference on Life Cycle Engineering, June 2, 2006, Leuven, Belgium.  Paper #137.
• Duncan, S., Paredis, C. J. J., and Bras, B. (2006). "Applying Information-Gap Decision Theory to a Design Problem having Severe Uncertainty" SAE 2006 World Congress, Paper #2006-01-0273. (Abstract)
• Carlier, T., Stevels, A.L.N., Duncan, S., Bras, B., and Boks, C.B. (2003). "Environmental benchmarking of medium-sized TVs sold in North America, Europe and Asia (China)." In s.n. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE international symposium on electronics and the environment (pp. 358-364). Piscataway: IEEE.
  
• Bras, B., Duncan, S., Franz, M., Graver, T., Han, Y.-H., McGinnis, L., Velasquez, S., Wilgenbusch, B., and Zhou, C. (2001) "Real-Time Integrated Economic and Environmental Performance Monitoring of a Production Facility." Society of Automotive Engineers, Paper No. 2000-ES-23. (Abstract)
  
• Gerhard, J.F., Duncan, S.J., Chen, Y., Allen, J.K., Rosen, D., Mistree, F. and Dugenske, A.D. (1999) "Towards A Decision-Based, Distributed Product Realization Environment For Engineering Systems." 1999 ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Paper No. ASMEDETC99/CIE9085. (Abstract)

Class Reports, Presentations, and Whitepapers

Other Information

My Resume, updated July 2007.

Undergraduate Institution, Go Hokies!