Events Calendar

Engineering for the 21sr Century

Speaker: Dr. David Allen, Gertz Regents Professor and Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Resources, University of Texas

Talk Title: Engineering for the 21st Century

Abstract: The profession of engineering is in a period of rapid change. Although the most basic elements of engineering education and practice will remain relatively constant, engineers of the 21st century will need to operate in global environments and adapt to an explosion of knowledge. Engineers will need to design products and infrastructures for increasingly urban populations and will require innovation and entrepreneurship skills. And, as societies and their technologies become more intertwine engineers will need to become engaged in public policy development.

All of these changes have implications for engineering education and research. Leading departments of engineering will respond to these changes in the profession of engineering. This presentation will describe a vision for a leading engineering program addressing the engineering challenges of megacities
and their populations.



Biography: Dr. David Allen is the Gertz Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of six books and over 200 papers in areas ranging from coal liquefaction and heavy oil chemistry to the chemistry of urban atmospheres. For the past decade, his work has focused primarily on urban air quality and the development of materials for environmental education. Dr. Allen was a lead investigato for the first and second Texas Air Quality Studies, which involved hundreds of researchers drawn from around the world, and which have had a substantial impact on the direction of air quality policies in Texas. He has also developed environmental educational materials for engineering curricula and for the University’s core curriculum, as well as engineering education materials for high school students. The quality of his work has been recognized by the National Science Foundation (through the Presidential Young Investigator Award), the AT&T Foundation (through an Industrial Ecology Fellowship), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (through the Cecil Award for contributions to environmental engineering and through the Research Excellence Award of the Sustainable Engineering Forum), the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (through their Distinguished Lecturer Award), and the State of Texas (through the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award). He has won teaching awards at UCLA and the University of Texas.

Dr. Allen received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering, with distinction, from Cornell University in 1979. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering were awarded by the California Institute of Technology in 1981 and 1983. He has held visiting faculty appointments at the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Department of Energy.

Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes