Dr. Donna H. Rhodes is a principal research scientist in the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the director of the MIT Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiative (SEAri), a research group focused on advancing theories, methods, and practices for the engineering of complex sociotechnical systems.

She is principal investigator for numerous sponsored research projects on human-model interaction, model curation, model-centric decision making, and innovative approaches for enterprise transformation under the digital paradigm. Her research involves deep collaboration and engagement with government, industry and other academic partners.  She is a principal investigator and collaborator in the DoD Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC). She teaches graduate courses, professional courses and custom executive courses, and has advised over 80 graduate students. She has over 150 publications, and is co-author of the book Architecting the Future Enterprise.

Prior to joining MIT in 2003, Dr. Rhodes held systems engineering and senior leadership positions at IBM, Lockheed Martin, and Lucent.  She is a Past President and Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE).  Her contributions in the systems field have been recognized by numerous publication awards, INCOSE Founders Award, IBM Outstanding Innovation Award and Lockheed Martin NOVA Award.

She received her M.S and Ph.D. in Systems Science from the T.J. Watson School of Engineering at Binghamton University.