Viterbi School Keynote Lectures

This year, the school launched a new series of endowed guest lectures hosted by each department

The Viterbi School ushered in its second century with a new set of endowed annual keynote lectures. Each of the school’s academic departments now offers a special scholarly presentation each year that is named for an individual who was connected to USC and who influenced the discipline.

In its first year, the keynote lectures covered a broad range of engineering topics, drawing on eminent scholars in the world of engineering. The series continues this fall, but has already included a number of experts and scholars:

• THE WILLIAM G. SPITZER LECTURE, sponsored by the Viterbi School Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, which featured nanosystems biology expert James Heath, the Gilloon Professor of Chemistry at Caltech.
• THE ANDREW J. VITERBI LECTURE, sponsored by the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, which featured Robert J. McEliece, renowned information theorist who is the Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech and the 2004 Shannon Lecturer of the IEEE. McEliece presented a talk and video on “Learning to Teach the Viterbi Algorithm.”
• THE GEORGE A. BEKEY LECTURE, sponsored by the Computer Science Department, featured Ed Lazowska, the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, who chronicled the past, present and future of computer science.
• THE JACK MUNUSHIAN LECTURE, sponsored by the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, featured Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate in physics and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who addressed “The World’s Energy Problem and What We Can Do About It.”
• THE JANOS LAUFER LECTURE, sponsored by the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department, which featured Anatol Roshko, the Theodore von Karman professor emeritus of aeronautics at Caltech, who discussed “Reflections of the Turbulence Problem.”
• THE FRED S. GRODINS LECTURE, sponsored by the Biomedical Engineering Department, which will feature Douglas Lauffenburger of MIT, the Uncas and Helen Whitaker Professor of Bioengineering and director of MIT’s Biological Engineering Division, who will address “Bioengineering and Systems Biology: A Promising Intersection for Bioscience and Biotechnology.”
• THE EBERHARDT RECHTIN LECTURE, sponsored by the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, will feature Louis Martin Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University and president-elect of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Professor Vega will address manufacturing, logistics, distribution, operations management, and production and service systems.
• THE ALBERT DORMAN LECTURE, sponsored by the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, will be announced later this fall.
• THE HSIEN K. CHENG LECTURE, sponsored by the Astronautics and Space Technology Division, will also be announced later this fall.

Visit our website for up-to-date series information: viterbi.usc.edu/news/events/keynote