The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) has honored New York City-based Anne O’Neil with its prestigious Founders Award for her contributions to the organization’s representation of transportation systems engineers. This is the first time the world’s most prestigious systems engineering organization has honored a transportation systems engineer. The Founders Award recognizes outstanding individual contributions to INCOSE.
INCOSE’s president Samantha Robitaille said O’Neil, of the New York City Transit (NYCT) Authority, was most deserving of this recognition. “She has shown tireless dedication in building INCOSE’s transportation working group, all while making her own mark in her field.”
O’Neil is credited with attracting transportation systems engineers to INCOSE and establishing a forum for them. This forum promotes the exchange of best practices to address common industry challenges stemming from the recent tremendous growth of technology deployment. Just as important, her efforts and visibility have boosted the recognition toward the value of systems engineers, within the field of transportation as well as aerospace, defense and biomedical, among others.
Among the many challenges facing transportation system engineers, perhaps none are as urgent as the ones faced in transit with integrating modern technology with infrastructure installed 80 to 100 years ago. O'Neil’s contributions have rallied the industry and systems engineering practitioners to jointly develop solutions to these challenges.
Within the various professional positions she has held, O’Neil has made significant contributions to advancing the application of technology to transportation systems in the metropolitan regions of New York City, Atlanta, Toronto and Boston.
As a registered Professional Engineer and certified systems engineering professional (CSEP), O’Neil’s project responsibilities have spanned the design and constructions phases of projects. She has served in engineering design, technical managemen, and construction management capacities.
Examples of project roles include, principal communications engineer overseeing communications infrastructure and applications design on NYCT subway expansion projects, Second Avenue Subway and No.7/Flushing Line Extension; technical design lead for the successful design/build bid to integrate and install intelligent transportation systems (ITS) at the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels (connecting NY and NJ); construction manager overseeing multiple concurrent ITS construction projects with contracts worth over $50M for Georgia Dept. of Transportation’s post-Olympic advanced transportation management (ATMS) expansion; and Tunnel Systems design manger for a new four-lane sub-surface vehicular tunnel enabling Toronto Airport terminal expansion.
