Keynotes

2025 WSC Keynote

Michael McFarlane

Chief, Simulation & Graphics Branch
NASA

Bio

Michael McFarlane currently serves as the chief of the Simulation and Graphics Branch at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. In this capacity, he leads a team that develops human-in-the-loop simulation capabilities as well as the tools used to build those integrated simulations. These simulations are used for a variety of purposes in support of human spaceflight, from early conceptualization through concept development, space vehicle development, mission planning, astronaut training, and real-time mission support.

Prior to his current position, he was chief of NASA’s Human Interface Branch, which develops and maintains displays and controls, audio systems, visual systems, and wearable systems for human space missions. He has been working at Johnson Space Center for nearly 40 years on a wide variety of technical projects. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1988.

2025 Titans of Simulation

Mark Elder

Founder of Simul8
Retired

Our Clients’ Real Goals – Some Lessons from One Career in Simulation

Mark accidentally fell into simulation on day seven of his career. Since then, he’s often been taken aback by how frequently clients set an objective, only to revise their goals as they gain insights throughout the project’s development. This experience has led him to understand that the advantages outlined in simulation textbooks don’t always align with the real benefits clients derive from the projects we implement. In this talk, Mark will present an array of case studies from his career in simulation, highlighting how we should sometimes embrace and leverage unexpected results from projects. He will reflect on the implications for how projects should be structured commercially, some features required in software tools that assist with rapidly evolving client thinking, and some of the academic research explaining why this happens in simulation projects.

Bio

Mark Elder started working in simulation modeling 2 weeks after he started his first full time position (in the Operations Research group in British Leyland, a large UK based car manufacturer), and has never managed to escape the thrill of seeing clients’ minds open up as they realize the benefits that simulation brings.

After some months building GPSS simulations (and physical wooden models to help communicate the results) he joined the team building SEE-WHY the world’s first commercial, visual-interactive, simulation tool, that later evolved into Witness. While at British Leyland he started a part-time PhD with Bob Hurrion at Warwick University.

In the early 1980s he helped start Insight Scientific (creators of Optik and Genetik visual interactive simulation tools) before, in 1989, he switched to an academic position teaching simulation at Strathclyde University where he finished his PhD with Colin Eden. The “soft OR” approach favored by the Strathclyde group was a significant influence on Mark’s approach to simulation. He believes that only part of the benefit is from the statistical results, whereas much of the client’s learning comes from interacting with the simulation and the process of building the simulation.

In 1994, feeling the time was right for a high-volume, drag and drop simulation tool, he founded Simul8 Corporation (from which he retired in 2024 – Simul8 is now part of Minitab).

Mark is a “Fellow” of the Operational Research Society, who also awarded him a Beale medal, and he currently chairs its accreditation panel.

Mark continues to attend academic simulation conferences, conduct pro-bono simulation projects and ride his mountain bike.

Charles M. Macal

Chief Scientist &
Social Behavioral Systems, Group Leader
Argonne National Laboratory

Bio

Charles “Chick” Macal received an MSc in Industrial Engineering from Purdue in 1975 studying under A. Alan B. Pritsker, and was drawn into simulation during its earlyiest beginnings. At the time simulation was the “next big thing,” with (1) simulation applications that would save the world (System Dynamics, from the Club of Rome), (2) new simulation languages (GASP IV, Q-GERT, SLAM) that would facilitate the easy and quick simulation model development, and (3) the establishment of companies dedicated to simulation (Pritsker & Associates).

Subsequently, he took a position at Argonne National Laboratory with the intent of using simulation modeling to solve the “Energy Crisis,” described by then-President Jimmy Carter as the “moral equivalent of war” (still working on that). While working, he received a PhD in Industrial Engineering & Management Science from Northwestern University, focusing on systems of optimization models applied to energy markets, and later realized that the same model form is equivalent to what has become known as agent-based modeling.

He has received numerous awards for his work on simulation methods, theory, and applications, and served as President or Chairman for most simulation professional organizations, including WSC and SCS. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Simulation. Chick remains at Argonne developing novel, large-scale applications of simulation to important national and global problems in the areas of energy, infrastructure, energy and critical material supply chains, and other areas.

MASM Keynote

Devadas “Dave” Pillai

Retired, Intel Senior Fellow & Former Director

Bio

Devadas Pillai is a retired Intel Senior Fellow & former director who led the development and proliferation of simulation modeling methods & optimization tools across Intel’s technology development and high-volume manufacturing fabs worldwide for over 2 decades.

Pillai was Intel’s first Fellow whose technical expertise is factory automation and robotics manufacturing. He has been honored many times by his industry peers as one of the most influential leaders who drove the vision and worldwide industry direction for 300 mm fab standardization resulting in pervasive fab automation and modeling tools for improving IC manufacturing.

Pillai has written more than 90 peer-reviewed technical papers and keynote presentations in IEEE, ISSM, IEDM, SME, JES, IIE, SEMI and others in the fields of factory automation and operational modeling.

Military Keynote

Andreas Tolk

Chief Scientist, Complex Systems Modeling
Modeling and Analysis Innovation Center
The MITRE Corporation

Combat and Complexity: Using Modeling and Simulation to Understand the Implications for the Next War

Ideas of complexity can be found in the works of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, so complexity in combat is not a new concept the military community and supporting modeling, simulation, and analysis experts must deal with. However, the amount of complexity increases. Early weapon systems did not reach beyond the direct control of the user. The battlefield could be delimited using organizational boundaries defining areas of responsibility assigned to local units. Today’s weapon effects reach beyond the control of the user. Areas of responsibility overlap. Unit boundaries are no longer efficient, but collaboration in the overlapping areas is needed. Today’s military operations increasingly rely upon joint, coalition, allied, and combined multilateral forces that are optimized, and task organized. Air, land, sea, space, and cyber operations are being tied together on a multidomain battlefield characterized by non linear operations in a networked kill web. Such kill webs provide a new from of operational agility that is far beyond current capabilities, but also requires new degrees of weapon system interoperability and a new concepts for battle management command and control. This presentation shows implications for the next war and recommends a closer collaboration with the complex adaptive systems community to benefit from their methods and tools.

Bio

Andreas Tolk is Chief Scientist for Complex Systems Modeling in the Modeling and Analysis
Innovation Center at The MITRE Corporation in Charlottesville, VA. He holds a variety of service and editorial roles within the simulation community, including having served on the WSC Governance Board from 2013 to 2021. He has an extensive publication record, including many contributions to the Command and Control Research Program and the System Analysis and Studies Group of NATOs Science and Technology Board. Among 14 other textbooks and compendiums on simulation and systems engineering topics he authored the textbook “Engineering Principles of Combat Modeling and Distributed Simulation,” published
2012 by Wiley. He received a PhD and M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of the Federal Armed Forces, Germany. Andreas is a Fellow of SCS and a senior member of ACM and IEEE. He received distinguished contribution awards from ACM and SCS and was recognized as a “Titan of Simulation” at the Winter Simulation Conference 2021.