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:

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