Message from the Dean
 

Blue Skies

As we start the brand new year of 2011, it is appropriate to look back as well as forward.

One hundred years ago, engineering at USC was a toddler- a mere five years old. In 1911, Marie Curie received her second Nobel Prize. Curie was the first female Nobel laureate, the first person to win twice, and she is still the only woman to win in two categories - physics and chemistry.

Yes, there were outstanding female scientists a hundred years ago.

Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to the South Pole. And 1911 was the year that the Titanic was actually launched.

Perhaps, however, the most significant event of 1911 was that New York received its first Marconi wireless transmission from Italy. We like to think of the communications revolution as a recent phenomenon, but wireless communications were born about a century ago.

Wireless communication empowers everyone, everywhere, and all the time with access to information, and perhaps knowledge. Theoretically, everyone in the planet may participate in our global community, using ever expanding social networks to form countless global alliances.

I am proud that USC engineering has played a pivotal role in this communications revolution. Our Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey was a pioneer of the Internet, creating, among other advances, the Domain Name System of the Internet. And the namesake of our school and its most distinguished alumnus, Andrew Viterbi, a modern Marconi, created the algorithm that enables the faithful transmission and reproduction of signals amidst the cacophony and chaos of signals everywhere in the ether.

These discoveries have paved the way for yet another revolution with deep technological and engineering roots that is also transforming society. I call this engineering empowering society or engineering+. It reflects a convergence of disciplines, stronger and faster than ever before.

Engineering can be simply summarized as design under constraints. Traditionally, that design was of mechanical or electronic devices. However, engineering tools today are being applied to health, communications, business models, the social sciences, and systems of all kinds.

This revolution is already impacting our lives, especially in the field of medicine where engineering is at the core of new medical devices, medical imaging, new surgical techniques, health informatics and the creation of new medicines. The new HTE@USC and the Ming Hsieh Research Institute for Engineering Medicine for Cancer are the latest initiatives in our school that bridge engineering and medicine.

Back in 1911, Albert Einstein explained why the sky is blue. He did it by calculating the detailed formula for the scattering of light by molecules. Figuring out why the sky is blue was certainly not his most important accomplishment, however by calculating a new formula for how molecules scatter light, Einstein did use some engineering moxie to solve the problem.

Engineering ran in his family. Einstein's father and uncle started an electrical engineering firm and Einstein himself originally was going to be an engineer. But in 1895, when he was 16, he failed the entrance exam for the Swiss Polytechnic in Zurich. So much about standardized test scores…

So while we can't all be engineers, all of us benefit from engineering. And we will need a heavy dose of engineering in the years to come to keep our precious globe sustainable and the future bright for our children and the generations to come.

I wish all of you a happy and prosperous 2011. And may your skies always be blue.

Yannis C. Yortsos
Dean
USC Viterbi School of Engineering