Centennial Lectures
100 Years of Engineering at USC – An Academic Celebration
To celebrate 100 years of engineering at USC, the Viterbi School’s departments organized a series of nine academic lecture. Speakers included two university presidents, an astronaut and a host of other highly distinguished academics. Another university president, Nobel laureate David Baltimore was the keynote speaker at this year’s Engineering Award Luncheon where USC President Steven B. Sample received the Viterbi School Centennial Medallion. Below are summaries of the lectures and links leading to complete stories.
November 9, 2005 – The Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering brought William Rouse, director of the Tennenbaum Institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He gave two presentations, one on how to survive in the global economy, and another on how world-class research universities move up in rankings.
January 26, 2006 – Lynn Orr, the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor of Petroleum Engineering and director of the Global Climate and Energy Project at Stanford University spoke on energy challenges in the 21st century. This centennial lecture was hosted by the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, which also sponsored a second lecture by Professor Paul Hansma, department of physics at UC Santa Barbara, on "Molecular Mechanics of Bone Fracture.”
Feb. 1, 2006 – To an overflow audience, Rudolph E. Kalman, professor emeritus, ETH, Zurich, spoke on “The Newtonian Revolution: Interaction of Mathematics with High Technology.” This lecture, rich in complex mathematics and history was hosted by the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.
Feb. 17, 2006 – John Hennessy, the charismatic engineer president of Stanford University, spoke about the future of microprocessor architecture telling a full house that Moore’s Law has hit a slippery patch. The Department of Computer Science hosted the lecture.
March 7, 2006 – Addressing the largest centennial audience so far, G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, spoke about “The Turning Point for Engineering: Can We Adapt?” The lecture, which preceded the 12th annual Associated General Contractors Symposium, was hosted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
March 9, 2006 – Toby Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia, delivered the fourth annual Viterbi Lecture, which was also the sixth centennial lecture. Hosted by the Department of Electrical Engineering, the lecture focused on the application of signal processing to understanding the human brain.
March 29, 2006 – Legendary Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin spoke to a largely student audience about the future of space exploration in a lecture sponsored by the Astronautics and Space Technology Division with help from USC Spectrum, the USC Office of the Provost and the Viterbi School’s Office of Admission and Student Affairs.
March 31, 2006 – Roderic I. Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, said that no other field stands to gain as much from the merging of engineering and biology than medicine. His lecture, “The Promise of Emerging Technologies in 21st Century Medicine,” was hosted by the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
April 5, 2006 – James Roche, former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, examined the impact of American high technology on our national defense strategy and on engineering education. The
Systems Architecture and Engineering Program hosted the lecture.
http://viterbi.usc.edu/links/?102
April 6, 2006 - USC President Steven B. Sample Awarded Viterbi School Centennial Medal and Caltech President David Baltimore Keynotes 28th Annual Engineering Awards Luncheon
