When designing a curriculum, there is and always will be competition for the limited number of courses a student successfully can master, which begs the question: What should the minimum requirement for graduation include and what should the proportion be between a narrow job training and a broader education? In the field of engineering, this question is even more pressing because the toolbox for solving problems – this is what engineers are meant to do professionally – is vast and very complex in and of itself. But in the globalized world of the 21st century, solving problems alone seems no longer sufficient and cultural and inter-cultural competencies are being added to the target specifications of a successful engineer.
Moreover, engineering and the natural sciences are just one expression of human curiosity and culture, others being music, art, literature, philosophy, the social sciences and even religion. Of course, historians of science and technology know this and are exploring different stages of human development from this angle. The opposite case might not be as obvious and the argument for an inclusion of humanities and social sciences in engineering often “goes without saying.“ With the insights of our distinguished experts we would like to fill in some blanks and maybe even provide an answer to the question: Does it really have to be Shakespeare, Goethe, and Bach?
Our panel included the distinguished speakers Julika Griem, Myles W. Jackson, Jelena Kovačević, and Pamela H. Smith, and will be moderated by Kurt Becker.
This panel was presented by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and co-hosted by 1014 - space for ideas.
Julika Griem is Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI Essen) and since 2016, she has been Vice President of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). Her research interests are, among others, the analysis of the contemporary literary industry, its changing forms and rituals as well as the assessment of its methodologies; Science Policy; and the institutions and frameworks which enable literature and literary studies. Dr Griem has been Full Professor for English Literature at Darmstadt University of Technology (2005 – 2012) and at Goethe University Frankfurt (2012-2018). She completed her doctorate at the University of Freiburg and her habiliation at the University of Stuttgart.
Myles W. Jackson is the Albers-Schönberg Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University’s Institute for Advance Study (IAS). He explores the intersections between science, technology, aesthetics, history, and society. The breadth of Dr Jackson’s research extends from the artisanal production of scientific knowledge in nineteenth-century Germany to molecular biology and physics, intellectual property and privacy issues, knowledge sharing, race and genomics, bioengineering, and the interactions between musicians, natural scientists, and radio engineers. His scholarship is noted for its cross-disciplinary methodology and interweaves economic, commercial, and scientific insights, pushing the boundaries of the field to establish fresh lines of inquiry.
Jelena Kovačević became the Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in August 2018. She is the first woman to head the school and she is committed to getting more women interested in technology. Tandon's freshman class has more than double the national average of women in engineering and a quarter of its faculty are women, but Jelena works to make that number grow. Dr Kovačević received the Dipl. Electrical Engineering degree from the EE Department, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1986, and the MS and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University, New York, NY, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. From 1991-2002, she was with Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ. She was a co-founder and Technical VP of xWaveforms, based in New York City, NY. She was also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. In 2003, she joined Carnegie Mellon University, where she was the Hamerschlag University Professor, Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor of Biomedical Engineering.
Pamela H. Smith is Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University, Director of the Center for Science and Society and specializes in early modern European history and the history of science. Her current research focuses on attitudes to nature in early modern Europe and the Scientific Revolution, with particular attention to craft knowledge and historical techniques. Dr Smith is founding director of The Making and Knowing Project, founding director of The Center for Science and Society, and chair of Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience. She holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and is the author of The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton 1994; 1995 Pfizer Prize), The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago 2004; 2005 Leo Gershoy Prize), and From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (Chicago 2022). Dr Smith’s work on alchemy, artisans, and the making of vernacular and scientific knowledge has been supported by prestigious fellowships such as the Wissenschafts-Kolleg, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Getty Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
Kurt Becker is Vice Dean for Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering and was part of a group of pioneering scientists who determined the ionization cross sections for atoms and molecules, which are critical to understanding the charge carrier formation in plasmas. Additional areas of interest include atomic, molecular and chemical physics, the development of new experimental techniques and processes, technology transfer, and IP commercialization. He earned a Diplom in Physik (MS) and Dr. rer. Nat. at the Universität des Saarlandes in 1978 and 1981, respectively. Dr Becker is the recipient of the Dr. Eduard-Martin Prize for Excellence in Research, American Physical Society Fellow, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award (with Erich Kunhardt), and an honorary professorship from the Leopold-Franzens-Universität.