Specifically, Kenley was honored for advancing the application of analytic methods and statistical modeling techniques in systems design and analysis. He focuses on education and research in the science of systems fundamentals and over the past 30 years has proved his skills in industry, academia and government as a practitioner, consultant and researcher in systems engineering. He is a member of the Purdue Systems Collaboratory and has worked at Lockheed Missiles and Space, the Idaho National Laboratory, and the MIT Lean Advancement Initiative. He also has been actively involved with INCOSE, which is dedicated to advancing the state of the art and practice in systems engineering. He holds master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University in engineering-economic systems, a bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and a master's degree in statistics from Purdue.