Brunel
Lecture Series on Complex Systems
Engineering Systems Division
Lecture:
Educating Engineers for 2020 and Beyond
by
Dr. Charles M. Vest, President Emeritus and Professor of
Mechanical Engineering
Click
here to view lecture poster
(.pdf).
Click here
to read an article on this lecture.
Click here
to view MIT World video of this lecture.
About
the Lecture:
The
context of engineering – and therefore of engineering
education – is rapidly changing under the forces of
ever-expanding scientific knowledge and technical capability,
globalization, increasing scale and complexity of engineering
systems, national and international demographic shifts,
and new capabilities of information technology. We cannot
be complacent about American leadership in engineering education,
or about our responsibility to promote innovation and sustainable
systems and economies. Above all, we must ensure that universities
and engineering schools are exciting, creative, adventurous,
rigorous, demanding, and empowering milieus for our students.
About
the Speaker:
Charles
M. Vest is President Emeritus and Professor of Mechanical
Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Vest earned his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering
from West Virginia University in 1963 and both his M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan in 1964
and 1967, respectively. He is the recipient of ten honorary
doctoral degrees.
Dr.
Vest served as President of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) from 1990 through 2004. During this
time, he placed special emphasis on enhancing undergraduate
education, exploring new organizational forms to meet emerging
directions in research and education, building a stronger
international dimension into education and research programs,
developing stronger relations with industry, and enhancing
racial and cultural diversity at MIT.
Dr.
Vest has worked to bring issues concerning education and
research to broader public attention and to strengthen national
policy on science, engineering and education. He chaired
the President’s Advisory Committee on the Redesign
of the Space Station and serves on the President’s
Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. He chaired
the U.S. Department of Energy Task force on the Future of
DOE Science Programs, was vice chair of the Council on Competitiveness
for a decade, and is a past chair of the Association of
American Universities. Dr. Vest recently completed service
as a member of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities
of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
and now serves on the U.S. Secretary of Education’s
Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
Dr.
Vest currently sits on the board of directors of IBM and
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, and is a trustee of
the Kavli Foundation and In-Q-Tel.
About
the Series:
THE
BRUNEL LECTURE SERIES ON COMPLEX SYSTEMS was made
possible by funds assembled and underwritten by Frank P.
Davidson, convener of the Channel Tunnel Study Group (1957).
It was this group's design, accomplished by agreement with
Bechtel Corporation, Brown & Root, Inc. and Morrison-Knudsen
Company, Inc. in 1959, that formed the basis of the subsea
railway link now in service between England and France.
Mr.
Davidson is a retired Senior Research Associate at MIT.
From 1970-1996, he was Chairman of the System Dynamics Steering
Committee, Sloan School of Management, and Coordinator of
the Macro-Engineering Research Group at MIT's School of
Engineering. He co-edited, with C. Lawrence Meador, Macro-Engineering:
Global Infrastructure Solutions, subtitled Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Brunel Lectures 1983-1992. With
Ernst G. Frankel and C. Lawrence Maedor, he co-edited Macro-Engineering,
subtitled MIT Brunel Lectures on Global Infrastructure.
These volumes, published by Ellis Horwood and Horwood Publishing
Limited in 1992 and 1997, respectively, appeared in Chichester,
England, as did Macro-Problems and World Projects, subtitled
Essays in Honor of Frank Davidson, which appeared
in 1998, on the occasion of Mr. Davidsons retirement and
80th birthday. The latter volume was edited by MIT Professor
Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel and by Uwe Kitzinger, CBE, former
president of Templeton College, Oxford, and now a Visiting
Scholar at Harvard.
Brunel
Lectures 2001 – Present:
From
IT to Cleantech: New Sources of Innovation (2008)
by Shai Agassi
Founder and CEO, Better Place
Process
Improvement in the Rarified Environment of Academic Medicine
(2007)
by Paul F. Levy
President and Chief Executive Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center
Educating
Engineers for 2020 and Beyond (2006)
by
Dr. Charles M. Vest
President Emeritus and Professor of Mechanical Engineering
The
21st Century is about Engineering, Systems, and Society
(2005)
by Dr. A. Richard Newton
Dean of the College of Engineering at University of California
at Berkeley; Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering; Professor
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Engineering
Engineering Systems (2004)
by Thomas L. Magnanti
Institute Professor
Dean, MIT School of Engineering
The
Columbia Tragedy: System-Level Issues for Engineering
(2003)
by Sheila Widnall
Member, Columbia Accident Investigation Board
Member, National Women's Hall of Fame
Institute Professor, Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics,
and Engineering Systems, Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Living
with Catastrophic Terrorism: Can Science and Technology
Make the U.S. Safer? (2002)
by Lewis M. Branscomb
Co-chair, Committee on Science and Technology for Countering
Terrorism, National Research Council and Professor Emeritus,
Public Policy and Corporate Management, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University
Simple
Systems and Other Myths (2001)
by Norman R. Augustine
Former President, CEO, and Chairman and Current Chairman,
Executive Committee, Lockheed Martin Corporation
|
