"Life...Finds a Way": Sustainable Capture and Upcycling of Plastics by Microbes Advances in synthetic biology and machine learning enable new engineering approaches to enhance plastic degradation via enzymes. Plastics, widely used for their low cost and durability, pose a grand environmental challenge. Every year, more than 380 million tonnes of plastics are produced ... AuthorRoss R. Klauer, Mark A. Blenner, and Kevin V. Solomon Release dateWinter 2022 Volume52 Number4 Read More
3D Printing for Low-Resource Settings 3D printing has the potential to produce many needed items in low-resource settings, where lack of infrastructure and weak manufacturing capacity make local production impractical, and high tariffs, unreliable supply chains, and economic instability make importation costly. With lower costs and ... AuthorMatthew P. Rogge, Melissa A. Menke, and William Hoyle Release dateFall 2017 Volume47 Number3 Read More
A 21st Century Renaissance Technology, humanism, and cross-disciplinary cooperation can combine to take us farther than we dreamed we could go. Good afternoon, and congratulations to our new members. I know you will find your experience with the NAE rewarding. Few organizations have so great an effect on the ... AuthorGeorge M. C. Fisher Release dateFall 2000 Volume30 Number3/4 Read More
A 911 Call to the Engineering Profession The events of September 11 challenged the future of our heavily engineered environment and the future of the engineering profession. An attack on our nation . . . thousands dead . . . 20 percent of downtown office space in Manhattan damaged or destroyed . . . more than 40 percent of the ... AuthorRobert Prieto Release dateSpring 2002 Volume32 Number1 Read More
A Call for K–16 Engineering Education Engineers are packaged as problem solvers rather than creators and innovators addressing grand challenges. The best-intentioned diversity-recruitment initiatives by engineering colleges nationwide have had little success in increasing access to the richly textured future afforded by careers ... AuthorJacquelyn F. Sullivan Release dateSummer 2006 Volume36 Number2 Read More
A Call to the Engineering Community to Address Human Trafficking Human trafficking (HT) is a horrific and seemingly intractable problem that is typically construed as falling beyond the purview of engineers. This paper argues that engineering systems analysis can produce important insights concerning HT operations and ways to reduce its frequency. ... AuthorJonathan P. Caulkins, Matt Kammer-Kerwick, Renata Konrad, Kayse Lee Maass, Lauren Martin, and Thomas Sharkey Release dateFall 2019 Volume49 Number3 Read More
A Case for Frugal Engineering and Related Manufacturing for Social Equity Urgent and continued work in frugal engineering and manufacturing is essential for addressing technosocioeconomic inequity in the United States. Traditionally, problems arising from lack of access to basic human needs such as food insecurity, affordable health care are thought of as global ... AuthorAjay P. Malshe, Dereje Agonafer, Salil Bapat, and Jian Cao Release dateSpring 2021 Volume51 Number1 Read More
A Decade and a Half of Progress Toward Reducing Noise in the United States The NAE and INCE Foundation have engaged the noise control engineering community to advance efforts to improve noise in the United States. The year 2020 marks 15 years since kick-off of the Technology for a Quieter America (TQA) project (figure 1), a joint effort of the National ... AuthorEric W. Wood and George C. Maling Jr. Release dateSummer 2021 Volume51 Number2 Read More
A Disturbing Mosaic The United States is trading the long-term health of U.S. research and education for the appearance of short-term security. William Wulf I assume that all of you have read or heard a discussion of Tom Friedman’s book (2005), The World Is Flat. But just in case, I’ll ... AuthorWm. A. Wulf Release dateFall 2005 Volume35 Number3 Read More
A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Looking Toward the Future of Science Education It is an exciting time for K–12 science and engineering education in the United States; a new vision for teaching science and engineering promises to transform the experiences of students in all grades across the country. This vision, articulated in a new report from the National Research ... AuthorHeidi A. Schweingruber, Helen Quinn, Thomas E. Keller, and Greg Pearson Release dateSpring 2013 Volume43 Number1 Read More
A Framework to Understand Cybersecurity Better cybersecurity is an admirable aspiration. But aspirations, as such, are not actionable. Calling for better cybersecurity does not give any hint of what actions should be taken, and by whom, to improve the situation. The goal of this paper is to break the challenge of improved ... AuthorDavid D. Clark Release dateFall 2019 Volume49 Number3 Read More
A Fully Integrated Model of Interdependent Physical Infrastructure and Social Systems Common to the many definitions of resilience in the literature and in policy statements is the notion that resilience is the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. The performance of the built environment and the support of ... AuthorBruce R. Ellingwood, John W. van de Lindt, and Therese P. McAllister Release dateSummer 2019 Volume49 Number2 Read More
A Fundamentals-based Approach for Scale-up of DAC Technology Unique scale-up approaches are needed to accelerate the development of cost-effective DAC technologies. Energy touches, directly or indirectly, every aspect of daily life. As the global population increases, so does the demand for energy. The challenge is to provide affordable, reliable, and ... AuthorRodrigo Blanco Gutierrez Release dateWinter 2021 Volume51 Number4 Read More
A Glimpse into the DOD S&T Program Leveraging advances in commercial technologies and maintaining a well-balanced, adequately funded S&T program will be necessary to retaining our technological edge. As the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) moves into the twenty-first century, its science and technology (S&T) program ... AuthorDelores M. Etter Release dateSummer 2001 Volume31 Number2 Read More
A Global Pandemic as a Complex, Unifiable System Global pandemics result from an emerging infection that causes notable disease in many countries in different parts of the world. At the margins—exactly how many countries and continents and with what degree of disease severity—public health authorities may dicker over the definition ... AuthorHarvey V. Fineberg Release dateWinter 2020 Volume50 Number4 Read More
A Life In Education An engineer's personal experiences form the basis for an innovative educational program that uses concrete, visual problems to teach abstract math concepts to students in inner-city public schools. Many are the paths to a successful educational career, and they vary from country to ... AuthorMario Salvadori Release dateSummer 1997 Volume27 Number2 Read More
A Metastructure Approach to Smart and Sustainable Cities Smart city implementation involves physical infrastructures, digital IT, policies, financing, community engagement, and partnerships that must be created and sustained in concert with each other. The smart city concept was born out of a global need to respond to a coupled challenge of ... AuthorAnne S. Kiremidjian and Michael Lepech Release dateSpring 2023 Read More
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Concussion Management A significant challenge in the diagnosis and management of athletes and military personnel with concussion is the diverse background, training, clinical management approach and outcomes used by the multidisciplinary team of clinicians involved. Further challenging the continuity of care ... AuthorJay L. Alberts Release dateSpring 2016 Volume46 Number1 Read More
A New Categorical Imperative In 1973 the German philosopher Hans Jonas posed the central ethical test for modern technological society. He observed that previously the “good and evil about which action had to care lay close to the act, either in the praxis itself or in its immediate reach,” whereas a new ... AuthorDaniel Metlay Release dateWinter 2021 Volume50 NumberS Read More
A New Model for National Emergency Medical Care The current US healthcare “system” is not meeting the needs of patients or society. This is not a novel conclusion, but the need for change has been made much more salient by covid-19. What is the biggest lesson of the pandemic? The US healthcare delivery system, social systems, and ... AuthorDenis A. Cortese and Curtiss B. Cook Release dateWinter 2020 Volume50 Number4 Read More