2006 AAAS Engineering Section Meeting

 

Friday February 17, 2006

 

Renaissance Grand Hotel, St. Louis, MO

 

Majestic G Room

 

MINUTES

 

 

1.      Cristina Amon, Section Chair, called the meeting to order at 9:40 AM.  She asked those present to introduce themselves. The attendance list is included in Appendix A.

 

2.      Dr. Amon asked for comments and possible changes to the Draft Minutes of the Section Business Meeting held on February 18, 2005. The draft was posted on the Section website shortly after the Washington, DC meeting.  Copies of the draft were also made available at the meeting.  There were no comments made or changes suggested.  A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes.  The motion passed unanimously.

 

3.      The tentative agenda as shown in Appendix B was approved with no changes or additions.

 

4.      Announcements: Dr. Amon announced that Gail H. Marcus was elected Chair-Elect and Herbert H. Richardson was elected Member-at-Large of the Engineering Section’s Steering Group both effective February 21, 2006.  She also announced that Marwan Simaan was elected for an additional four year term to serve as Secretary for the Section.  The list of Section Officers and Members-at-Large for 2006-2007 is shown in Appendix C.

 

Dr. Amon also announced that James J. Duderstadt and Winfred M. Phillips were elected as Council Delegates and Sangeeta N. Bhatia and Frank L. Huband were elected to the Engineering Section Electorate Nominating Committee. 

 

Dr. Amon also announced that 27 members affiliated with the Engineering Section were elected Fellows of AAAS in September 2005.  The names of the new Fellows are listed in Appendix D. Three of the newly elected Fellows were present at the meeting:  Cynthia Atman, Rafael Bras, and Subhash Singhal.  Dr. Amon introduced them, welcomed them, and thanked them for attending the meeting.

 

5.      Fellow Nomination Process: Dr. Amon reviewed the AAAS Fellow nomination process. There are three ways a candidate can be nominated: By a member of the Steering Group (method 1), by a group of three Fellows (method 2), and by the AAAS Chief Executive Officer (method 3).

 

She discussed the procedure for Fellow nominations by members of the Steering Group (method 1).  She mentioned that each nomination must include a complete Fellow nomination form and either a letter of recommendation by the nominator or a detailed C.V. with a list of publications (although a C.V. is an essential piece of the required documentation).  She encouraged members of the Steering Group to submit both.   She mentioned that for the upcoming nomination cycle, these materials should be mailed to Marwan Simaan (section Secretary) so that he receives it no later than March 13, 2006.  Marwan will then forward the materials for all nominees to Linda McDaniel, AAAS Senior Administrative Associate, before March 20.  Information on the nomination process by a group of three Fellows (method 2) and a copy of the nomination form can be found on the AAAS main website.  A link to that website can also be found on our section Website (http://www.engr.pitt.edu/aaas-m).  Dr. Amon also mentioned that the deadline for Fellow nominations by a group of three Fellows is May 12, 2006. By May 30, all members of the Steering Group will receive from Linda McDaniel copies of the nomination materials for all nominees, including those nominated by a group of three Fellows, and by the Chief Executive Officer.  They will also receive a voting sheet which they will need to fill and return to Marwan Simaan by June 30, 2006.  Marwan will then forward all votes to Linda McDaniel.   By August 30, 2006 the Executive Office will mail a slate of all approved nominees to the Council for formal election. 

 

Dr. Simaan mentioned that the number of Fellows elected through nominations by the Steering Group is subject to a section quota which is 15 for this year (there is no quota for those elected through nominations by three Fellows or by the Chief Executive Officer).  For this reason, he asked that each member of the Steering Group nominate no more than 2 or 3 candidates.  He also asked members of the Steering group to inform him ASAP of how many candidates they plan to nominate.  This will allow him to coordinate with the group to insure that all slots in the group’s quota are filled.  Dr. Cruz mentioned that in all three methods, a successful candidate must receive a majority vote from the Steering Group.  Furthermore, if a candidate receives more than two negative votes, the candidate will not be recommended for election to Fellow.

 

6.      2006 Annual Meeting: The list of the 2006 Symposia sponsored or co-sponsored by the Engineering Section is included as Appendix E.

        

7.      Planning for the 2007 Annual Meeting:  Dr. Amon announced that the 2007 AAAS Annual Meeting will be held in San Francisco, CA, 15-19 February 2007.  The theme of the meeting is “Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being”.  AAAS asked our section to brainstorm at our business meeting and arrive at 3 to 4 hot topics to be discussed at the Annual Meeting planning meeting which will be held on Sunday Feb 19.  These hot topics will form the basis for possible collaborative symposia sponsored by our section or co-sponsored with other section at the 2007 Annual meeting.   Dr. Amon asked for ideas and suggestions.  A discussion followed with everyone present contributing ideas. At the end, the ideas were grouped into four hot topics that would encompass many symposia that could be planned/sponsored by our section.  A summary of these topics is given below.

 

 

Hot Topic 1:  Energy Safety/Security

 

Increasing concerns about safety and security of energy supplies, global climate changes, and strong prospects of growing competition from developing countries for the world's energy resources have increased interest and awareness on energy production, efficiency, security, etc.

 

Several Symposia around this topic may be proposed including the following:

 

a)      Whither Nuclear Power? (Organizer: Gail Marcus-Section Chair-elect))

b)      Safe and Environmentally Friendly Sources of Energy

c)      Solid State (LED) Lighting (possible organizer: Steve DenBaars)

d)      Renewable/Efficient Energy (e.g., fuel cells, solar) (possible organizer: Frank Incropera)

 

 

Hot Topic 2:   Optimization of Critical Infrastructure Safety/Security

 

Critical Infrastructure Safety and Security is an important issue for homeland security, global stability, and for sustainable well-being. Our section can contribute several symposia which can address issues related to:

 

a)      Safety of Water/Electricity/Transportation/etc distribution networks (possible organizers: Jose' Moura, Jim Garrett)

b)      Natural Disaster Prediction (possible organizers: Dan Roos, Bill Rouse)

c)      Natural Disaster Preparation

d)      Building Security and Safety  (possible organizer: Frieder Seible)

 

 

Hot Topic 3: Engineering, Technology, and Science Education at all Levels

 

A sustainable well-being requires a highly educated workforce in engineering, technology and science.  How to create the required pipeline of students and how to prepare them to address the challenges for a sustainable well-being could be topics for one or two symposia:

 

a)      Education in Renewable/efficient  sources of energy (possible organizer : Frank Incorpera)

b)      Preparing engineers to deal with sustainability (possible organizers: Cynthia Atman, Fiora Goodchild).

 

 

Hot Topic 4: BioEngineering for Improving Human Health and Well-Being

 

Bioengineering is an important engineering discipline contributing to a sustainable well being.  Several symposia might be proposed in this area:

 

a)      Cellular neural networks (Leon Chua).

b)      Biologically inspired nano-devices

c)      The Engineering of artificial organs (possible organizer: Jim Antaki)

 

 

As Plenary and Topical lectures, the names of Nate Lewis (Cal Tech) and Klaus Lackner (Columbia/Los Alamos) were suggested as possible plenary speakers on the topic of Energy; and Denice Denton (UC Santa Cruz) and Steve Director (Drexel) were suggested as possible topical speakers on Engineering Education.

 

8.      Other Business:  Dr. John P. Holdren, AAAS President-Elect and Chair of the 2007 Meeting stopped by to introduce himself as the program chair for the 2007 Meeting. He encouraged our section to propose interesting and relevant symposia.  He also answered questions related to the 2007 Meeting.  Several questions centered around the need to have the meeting theme be decided long before the planning meeting which takes at the preceding Annual Meeting.  Several attendees stressed that if we were informed of the theme of the 2007 Meeting at least a month or so prior to our business meeting we would have had more time to generate more well thought out ideas.  Dr. Cruz also requested that feedback be given to the sections on proposals that did not get accepted.  He mentioned that essentially the sections are out of the loop during the selection process. The issue of having a representative from our section on the Program Committee of the AAAS Annual Meetings was also discussed. Marwan Simaan mentioned that (as was recommended at last year’s meeting) he has already suggested Jim Merz’s name as a possible addition to the program committee but that no action has yet been taken.   He mentioned that he will suggest his name to Jill Perla again. 

 

9.      The meeting was adjourned at 12:35 PM.

 

 

Submitted by:

Marwan A. Simaan

Section Secretary

February 20, 2006

 

 

Appendix A

 

Attendance List

 

1.                  Cristina Amon, Chair

2.                  Matt Tirrell, Chair-Elect

3.                  Marwan Simaan, Secretary

4.                  Jose B. Cruz, Jr., Retiring-Chair

5.                  James Merz, Member-at-Large 

6.                  Willis Bixby, Representative, American Nuclear Society

7.                  Peter Bainum, Representative, American Astronautical Society

8.                  James G. Harris, Council

9.                  David Lubman, Representative, Acoustical Society of America

10.              Proctor Reid, Section P Secretary/NAE

11.              Subhash Singhal

12.              Rafael Bras

13.              Cynthia Atman

14.              Anice Anderson

15.              Tom Mason

16.              S. K. Sundararam

17.              John Holdren, AAAS President-Elect

 

 

 

Appendix B

 

2006 Engineering Section Business Meeting

 

Friday February 17, 2006

 

9:30 AM - 12:30 PM

 

Renaissance Grand Hotel, St. Louis, MO

 

Majestic G Room

 

TENTATIVE AGENDA

 

1.    Introductions

 

2.    Approval of minutes of previous meeting

 

3.    Announcements

 

(a)  Officers for 2006-2007

(b)  New Engineering Section AAAS Fellows

 

4.    Discussion of Fellow nomination process

 

5.    Discussion of proposed symposia and seminars for 2007 and 2008 Annual Meetings

 

6.    New Business

 

 

 

 

Appendix C

 

2006-07 AAAS Section on Engineering Steering Group

 

(Officers and Members-at-Large, effective February 21, 2006)

 

Officers

Members-at-Large  

Matthew Tirrell Chair (2007)

College of Engineering

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA  93106-5130

Tel: (805) 893-3141

Fax: (805) 893-8124

E-mail: tirrell@engineering.ucsb.edu

James L. Merz (2007)

Department of Electrical Engineering

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, IN 46556

Tel: (574) 631-3111

Fax: (574) 631-0651

E-mail: jmerz@nd.edu

 

Cristina H. Amon Retiring Chair (2007)
ICES, 1201 Hamburg Hall

Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Ave.

Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel: (412) 268-4343

Fax: (412) 268-5229

E-mail: camon@cmu.edu

 

Christopher T. Hill (2008)

Office of the Provost

George Mason University

4400 University Dr., MS 3A2

Fairfax, VA 22030

Tel: (703) 993-2270

Fax: (703) 993-8871

E-mail: chill2@gmu.edu

 

Gail H. Marcus Chair-Elect (2007)

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
55, rue Molitor

F-75016, Paris, France
Tel: +33-1-45-24-10-02

Fax: +33-1-45-24-11-19

E-mail: ghmarcus@aol.com

 

Frances H. Arnold (2009)

Div. of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering

MC 210-41

California Institute of Technology

Pasadena, CA 91125-4100

Tel: (626) 395-4162

Fax: (626) 568-8743

E-mail:frances@cheme.caltech.edu

Marwan A. Simaan Secretary (2010)

Department of Electrical Engineering

348 Benedum Hall

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA 15261

Tel: (412) 624-8099

Fax: (412) 624-8003

E-mail: simaan@engr.pitt.edu 

Herbert H. Richardson (2010)

Texas Transportation Institute

The Texas A&M University System

College Station, TX 77802

Tel: (979)-845-8552

Fax: (979)-845-9356

E-mail: herbert-richardson@tamu.edu

 

 

 

Appendix D

 

New AAAS Fellows elected in September 2005

 

Engineering Section

 

  • J. K. Aggarwal, Univ. of Texas, Austin
  • Cynthia J. Atman, Univ. of Washington
  • Prith Banerjee, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago
  • Frank S. Bates, Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis
  • Rafael L. Bras, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Jeffrey J. Chalmers, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
  • Mohamed Jamal Deen, McMaster Univ.
  • Leonard C. Feldman, Vanderbilt Univ.
  • Morteza Gharib, California Institute of Technology
  • Hans G. Hornung, California Institute of Technology
  • John L. Hudson, Univ. of Virginia
  • Frank P. Incropera, Univ. of Notre Dame
  • Alex K-Y. Jen, Univ. of Washington
  • Kannan M. Krishnan, Univ. of Washington
  • Mary E. Lidstrom, Univ. of Washington
  • William M. Miller, Northwestern Univ.
  • José M. F. Moura, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
  • Wolfgang Porod, Univ. of Notre Dame
  • Ishwar K. Puri, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ.
  • Steven A. Ringel, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
  • Michael Shur, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Subhash C. Singhal, Pacific Northwest National Lab.
  • Gregory N. Stephanopoulos, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Dwight C. Streit, Northrop Grumman Space Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
  • Rao Y. Surampalli, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Kansas City, KS
  • Elias Towe, Carnegie Mellon Univ.
  • Charles B. Watkins, City College of New York

 

 

 

 

Appendix E

 

2006 Annual Meeting Symposia and Seminars of Interest to Engineers

 

1. Symposia and Seminars Sponsored by the Engineering Section

 

Thursday February 16, 2006

2:00pm-5:00pm                       Hybrid Interfaces and Integrative Nanobiotechnology (Nanotechnology Seminar)

 

Friday February 17, 2006

8:30am - 10:00am       Overcoming Gender Stereotypes: Girls in Science, Engineering, and Technology
8:30am - 10:00am       Mentoring To Develop a Science and Engineering Workforce
1:30pm - 4:30 pm        Toxicology of Nanoparticles (Nanotechnology Seminar)
4:30pm - 6:00pm         Social Science Engages Nanotechnology (Nanotechnology Seminar)

Saturday February 18, 2006

8:00am – 9:30am         Future Nano-Enabled Energy Technologies
8:00am – 9:30am
         Are Women Succeeding in Science?
8:00am – 11:00am       Science and Engineering for Unmet Homeland Security Needs
8:00am – 11:00am       Educating Society About Nanotechnology
2:00pm – 3:30pm        Public Opinion and Public Engagement for Emerging Technologies:

Part 2 - Nanotechnology as a Case Study

Monday February 20, 2006

2:00pm – 3:30pm        Strengthening Science and Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa

 

2. Symposia and Seminars Co-Sponsored by the Engineering Section

 

Friday February 17, 2006

8:30am – 11:30am       Embryonic and Adult Stem Cells: Basic Science and Public Policy
8:30am – 11:30am       Frontiers in Biological Imaging: From Cells to Humans

8:30am – 11:30am       Oral Nanotechnology: Innovative Strategies for Disease Detection, Diagnosis, and Therapy (Nanotechnology Seminar)

8:30am – 11:30am       Global Discovery on the Internet

10:30am – 12:00n       Science and Engineering Entrepreneurship: Opportunities for the Future

1:45pm - 3:15pm         Turning Innovation into Industry: San Jose Fosters Small Business Development

1:45pm - 4:45pm         Computer Science Behind Your Science
1:45pm - 4:45pm         Mobilizing Science To End Poverty in the Developing World
3:30pm – 5:00pm        User Facilities and the U.S. Science and Technology Enterprise: A Great Opportunity

Saturday February 18, 2006

8:00am – 9:30am         Translating University Research in Life Sciences into Entrepreneurial Opportunities
8:00am – 9:30am         Fostering International Collaborations in Information Security Research

8:00am – 9:30am         Biosecurity Challenges in the Post 9-11 World

8:00am – 9:30am         Million-Dollar Mathematics: Challenge Problems in the 21st Century
9:45am – 11:15am       Imaging of Extracellular Matrix Dynamics in Living Cells: New Insights into Structure and Function
2:00pm - 3:30pm         Electric Forces in Biology and Medicine
2:00pm - 3:30pm         Remote Access to Advanced Instrumentation: Cyberinfrastructure for Teaching, Research, and Industry
2:00pm - 3:30pm         Future Potential of Biological Weapons: Science, Technology, and Policy
2:00pm – 5:00pm        How Adults Learn About New Science and Technology
2:00pm - 5:00pm         Assessing the STEM Enterprise Through Title IX
3:45pm - 5:15pm         Lasers in Medicine

3:45pm - 5:15pm         NUMB3RS and the Challenge of Changing Public Perception of Mathematics

Sunday February 19, 2006


8:30am - 11:30am       Expanding Universe of Digital Data Collections

10:30am - 12:00noon  Women in Industrial Research: American and European Perspectives

10:30am - 12:00noon  Tsunamis: Their Hydrodynamics and Impact on People
10:30am - 12:00noon  Public Opinion and Public Engagement for Emerging Technologies:

Part 1 -- The International Public Opinion Climate

 1:45pm - 3:15pm        Management and Leadership of Multi-Institutional and Interdisciplinary

                                    Research Collaborations
1:45pm - 4:45pm         Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy Mix

1:45pm - 4:45pm         Arches: Gateways from Science to Culture

 

Monday February 20, 2006

9:45am. - 12:45pm      Strengthening the Scientific Basis of Biometric Identification and Authentication

9:45am. - 12:45pm      Environmental Terrorism: Risk Assessment Scenarios for Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Agents  

2:00pm - 3:30pm         Advancing Women in Science Through Institutional Transformation