The ability of a complex system to adjust both allocation of resources and production output to the needs of its environment is critical to the sustainability and long-term value of an enterprise.  An evolved system is able to adapt and react to its environment and make the appropriate changes - it becomes truly a "thinking" system.  The capabilities that allow a system to sense changes in its environment, and then adapt accordingly, comprise its "cognitive" ability.

Stevens is committed to exploring this radical rethinking of systems engineering through multiple perspectives of systems thinking and architecting, artificial intelligence and machine learning, cyber-security of cognition-centric systems, cognition-centric software, multi-agent systems, knowledge management in complex adaptive systems, cognitive- and software-defined radio, sensor technologies, as well as data and physical network perspectives.