Dr. Nightingale has broad-based international experience with academia (UCF and MIT), the private sector and the government. Dr. Nightingale joined UCF as a University Distinguished Professor in 2017. In this role she provides counsel to the Dean of Engineering, the VP of Research, and other senior staff on opportunities for research, industry and government collaboration and faculty development. In addition, she provides mentorship and guidance to junior faculty and facilitates research collaboration across UCF boundaries. Dr. Nightingale served on the MIT faculty from 1997 to 2014 where she held a dual Professor of Practice appointment in the Engineering Systems Div. and the Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She also served as the Director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC), an interdisciplinary center focused on contemporary enterprise issues such as healthcare, innovations in product development and systems engineering, and organizational transformation. Dr. Nightingale also served as Director of the Lean Advancement Initiative, a consortium of large industry and government executives collaborating with MIT across organizational boundaries to transform their collective enterprises.

Her expertise and research interests revolve around teaching, facilitating, and coaching executive teams in analyzing and transforming their enterprises to achieve desired capabilities such as sustainability, flexibility or enhanced innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes employing advanced systems approaches and techniques based on her research and engagements with over 100 global organizations to evaluate and architect preferred structures to meet future needs and create increased stakeholder value. She has worked with multiple industries, including aerospace, automotive, financial, healthcare, energy and government, exemplified by her role as P.I. on several research projects, including an enterprise systems analysis of the DoD system of care for Post Traumatic Stress sponsored by the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, several systems studies for the Veterans Administration, and multiple projects in the civilian sector. In addition, Dr. Nightingale has led numerous senior executive transformation engagements in both industry and government. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Nightingale headed up Strategic Planning and Global Business Development for AlliedSignal Engines, leading a technical merger and acquisition and negotiating international business agreements. While there she also served in a broad base of operational, engineering and customer executive roles. Dr. Nightingale also worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where she served as program manager for computer simulation modeling research, design, and development in support of advanced man-machine design concepts.

Dr. Nightingale has a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Industrial and Systems Engineering. In addition, she holds MS and BS degrees in Computer and Information Science from The Ohio State University and University of Dayton, respectively. She also completed an executive program in International Management at Thunderbird Intl. Univ.

She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida, and Past-President and Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, where she was recently awarded the Frank and Lilian Gilbreth Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the lead author of two books: "Beyond the Lean Revolution: Achieving Successful and Sustainable Enterprise Transformation" and “Architecting the Future Enterprise". She serves on a number of Boards and is a frequent key-note speaker. She teaches executive education courses on enterprise transformation and architecting.