Engineer/author Henry Petroski to explore chaos and creation in design as the next University Lectures speaker, March 7

Engineer/author Henry Petroski to explore chaos and creation in design as the next University Lectures speaker, March 7March 02, 2006Patrick Farrellpmfarrel@syr.edu

Henry Petroski has earned an international following through his unique talent for sharing the excitement of the creative process in engineering. He will bring his enthusiasm and unique insights — illustrated with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation — into the sometimes-arcane world of design on Tuesday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel. Petroski’s appearance, part of the University Lectures series, is free and open to the public; parking for the lecture will be available in the Irving Avenue parking garage.

Petroski, the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, has made a career of making the world of engineering and technology accessible to popular audiences. He has written on a wide range of engineering-related matters, including design, success and failure, and the history of engineering and technology.

His books are appreciated by professional engineers and general readers alike and include “To Engineer Is Human” (St. Martins Press, 1985), which was adapted for a BBC-television documentary, and “Design Paradigms” (Cambridge University Press, 1994), which was named by the Association of American Publishers as the best general engineering book published in 1994. Since 1991, he has been writing the engineering column in the bimonthly magazine American Scientist and now also writes a bimonthly column on the engineering profession for ASEE Prism.

Before moving to Duke, Petroski was on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin and on the staff of Argonne National Laboratory. He is a professional engineer licensed in Texas and a chartered engineer registered in Ireland. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center.

The University Lectures is a cross-disciplinary lecture series that brings to the University individuals of exceptional accomplishment in the areas of architecture and design; the humanities and the sciences; and public policy, management and communications. The series is supported by the generosity of the University’s trustees, alumni and friends. The next University Lectures speaker will be human rights activist and Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller on Tuesday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel. More information isavailable at http://provost.syr.edu/lectures/current.asp.