Dr. John MacCarthy

Dr. John MacCarthy comes to Wofford with a 39 year career that includes education, industry, and various government advisory roles. Prior to joining Wofford College’s Physics Department, he served as Director of the University of Maryland’s Systems Engineering Education Program (College Park), a Research Staff Member for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and in a variety of engineering leadership roles for Northrop Grumman and TRW, working on large complex systems of systems that included air and missile defense systems, wireless communications systems, sensor networks, and nuclear waste management. During this time, he also served as an adjunct professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. MacCarthy began his career as an assistant professor of physics at Muhlenberg College.

Dr. MacCarthy’s interests include systems engineering, climate change, philosophy of science, sensor networks, artificial intelligence, and biophysics.

Education:

Career:

• 2014–2020:  Director, Systems Engineering Education Program, University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP)
• 2005–2014:  Adjunct Professor, Systems Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
• 2010–2014:  Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analyses
• 1999–2009:  Senior Systems Engineer/Manager, Northrop Grumman
• 1986-1999:   Proposal Operations Manager, Deputy Director of the Center for Advanced Technology, Department Manager, Section Head, Project Engineer, TRW
• 1981–1986:  Assistant Professor of Physics, Muhlenberg College
  

Courses Taught:

Wofford College (2021-Present)

• PHY 122: General Physics II

University of Maryland – College Park (2014–2019)

• ENES 489P: Hands-on Systems Engineering Projects
• ENSE 621: Systems Engineering Concepts and Processes: A Model-Based Approach*
• ENSE 622: System Trade-off Analysis, Modeling, and Simulation
• ENSE 623: System Development, Verification, and Validation
• ENPM 808M: Systems Engineering Management

University of Maryland – Baltimore County (2005–2014)

• ENEE 660: Systems Engineering Principles
• ENEE 662: System Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis
• ENEE 672: Decision and Risk Analysis
• ENEE 685: Introduction to Communications Networks
• ENEE 699: Mathematics and MATLAB Fundamentals

Muhlenberg College (1981–1986)

• University Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Thermal Physics
• Quantum Mechanics
• Biophysics
• PC-based Computer Programming

*While I did not teach this course, I developed the curriculum for it and mentored the instructors who taught it.

Some Representative Publications & Posters:

1. John MacCarthy, “The Drone System I: Context-Level Architecture,” 2019 INCOSE International Symposium.
2. John MacCarthy, “The Drone System II: Availability Performance Analysis and Modeling,” 2019 INCOSE International Symposium.
3. John MacCarthy, “An Integrated Quantitative Approach to Acceptance Testing and Related Decisions,” 2019 INCOSE International Symposium.
4. Michael Watson, Dorothy McKinney, Randall Anway, Larri Ann Rosser and John MacCarthy, “Appreciative Methods Applied to the Assessment of Complex Systems,” 2019 INCOSE International Symposium.
5. Gina Guillaume-Joseph and John MacCarthy, “Performing Programmatic Trade-Off Analytics,” in G Parnell (ed), Trade-off Analytics: Creating and Exploring the System Tradespace (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley).
6. John MacCarthy and Andres Vargas, “Sustainment Related Models and Trade Studies,” in G Parnell (ed), Trade-off Analytics: Creating and Exploring the System Tradespace (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley).
7. John MacCarthy and Patricia Bronson, “An Analytical Approach to Modeling the On-Station Availability of Systems of Unmanned Vehicles,” 2013 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
8. T. D. Bennett, L. L. Baggerly, and J. E. MacCarthy, “Some Measures of Meteor Burst Footprint,” MILCOM ’91 Conference Record, IEEE, 1991.
9. Bhalachandra L. Tembe, John E. MacCarthy, and John J. Kozak, “Transition Phenomena in Monolayers at the Air-Water Interface,” The Journal of Physical Chemistry 87, Issue 23 (November 1983).
10. K. A. Green, K. D. Luks, John E. MacCarthy, and John J. Kozak, “The Influence of Closure on the Behavior of the Yvon-Born-Green Equation for a System of Hard Rods,” Molecular Physics 45, Issue 4 (1982).
11. John Edward MacCarthy, “A Variational Approach to Statistical Mechanics with Applications to Molecular Monolayer Assemblies,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1982.
12. John E. MacCarthy and John J. Kozak, “A Dynamic Model for in vivo Virus Replication,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 90, Issue 2 (May 1981).
13. John E. MacCarthy, John J. Kozak, K. A. Green, and K. D. Luks, “A Variational Approach to the Statistical Mechanics of Hard Discs and Hard Spheres,” Molecular Physics 44, Issue 1 (1981).