Holly Ann Heine Handley
Dr. Holly Ann Heine Handley is recognized as one of the highly respected "Women Engineers" by the Institute of Electricals and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). IEEE has more than 419,000 members in over 160 countries and is the most trusted "voice" for engineering, computing, and technology information.
Handley is an associate professor in the engineering management and systems engineering department at Old Dominion University. She received a Ph.D. degree in information technology and engineering at George Mason University in 1999. In 1995, she received a master's of business administration degree in management information systems from the University of Hawaii and , before that in 1987 Handley received a master of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. In 1984, she received a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Clarkson College.
Growing up in a family of engineers, her father and brothers believed in her natural abilities in math and physics. As Handley shared her story, she said that her father pushed her to do more than expected of her. Married to a military officer and had moved more than a dozen times in 30 years, she worked for both industry and small businesses, as well as academia. She is a firm believer in pursuing new opportunities.
She Handley spent ten years of her career with Raytheon Company as a design engineer immediately after graduating from Clarkson University. Throughout her career, she worked in various roles, including a field engineer in Vicenza, Italy. She also worked for a small business, Pacific Science & Engineering, that focused on human factors engineering and interface design.
"I was excited to be featured as one of the IEEE System Council Women Engineers because I did not follow a traditional engineering path. I have worked for various companies in a variety of roles. This has cumulated culminated in my current role as system engineering, which requires a holistic approach to engineering design," said Handley. She added, "Everything is a system! The system boundary is where an engineer defines it. It forces me to think through how human is part of the system and how that influences the system design."
She added, "Everything is a system! The system boundary is where an engineer defines it. It forces me to think through how human is part of the system and how that influences the system design."
Handley applies engineering principles and experience in computational modeling to support human systems engineering research and development projects. She develops models and methodologies to represent the human component of socio-technical systems. She is currently part of the committee developing HSI industry-wide standards and was also a member of the original NATO panel to develop the Human human Viewpoint viewpoint for system architecture development. Her Human System Engineering Laboratory at ODU investigates questions on the balance of human roles and automation and the implications for personnel capabilities and manpower requirements across systems and organizations.