"Do Engineers have Principles? Public Values in Professional Practice"

Recent public engineering scandals like the VW Diesel Cheat, Theranos’s biotech vaporware, and the Boeing 737-MAX call us to reflect on how engineers, management, and various publics prioritize, realize, override, or discard certain values in the design and deployment of technology purported to benefit people and the planet. As we look towards a future marked by increasingly complex wicked problems and social messes, what are the core competencies that will enable engineers to sustain the profession’s and the public’s core values, including (but not limited to) health, safety, well-being, trust, quality, equity, and integrity? How are these competencies best learned and taught? What role can engineers and non-engineers play in creating cultures of accountability and fidelity in support of these values?

Donna Riley is Kamyar Haghighi Head of the School of Engineering Education and Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.

Lecture followed by reception.

Register