The Engineering Professor

At the local level, engineers serve as directors of public works, manage water treatment plants, and oversee pollution control programs. 

Engineering positions in government may provide satisfying and interesting work, with the added benefits of secure employment with liberal holidays and vacations and attractive programs of health and retirement. 

The problem is both technological and cultural. Since World War 11 we have learned the hard way that no technology can be simply picked up and used by a culture that is not already pervasively technological. Moreover, to abruptly dump quantities of hardware on any culture that has been basically rural and agricultural for tens of thousands of years is to invite disaster—instead of strengthening the culture, we destroy it. 

The academic career option is essentially in two forms. Of the 280 or so departments, schools, or colleges of engineering in the nation, many are straightforwardly academic, campus-centered departments or colleges in just the sense that chemistry, or botany, or English at these same schools are academic 

Most engineer-professors who pursue their careers at research-oriented universities are extraordinarily aggressive and doggedly resourceful people, temperamentally comfortable in a situation where they frequently have to wing it, not entirely sure where their next research dollar is coming from. This is not for everyone. Nevertheless, for those who are temperamentally suited to it, the dual life of teacher-scholar and funded researcher can be immensely rewarding, often in ways not available in any other option. Nowhere else can one find the freedom and autonomy for both teaching and research that are one of the traditional rewards of university life. 

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Therefore, the engineering professor of today and tomorrow needs to be a blend of... 

In a study prepared in 1980 by the Engineering Professors Conference in the United Kingdom, two different education models were proposed for engineering and, as a consequence, two different kinds of degrees offered. The first of these degrees was created specifically to ensure the engineering graduate was educated with confidence and competence to successfully tackle - and solve - new. 

I must express my appreciation to many colleagues in the Whittle Laboratory of the Engineering Department at Cambridge University. In particular I am grateful to Professor John Young who readily made available to me his computer code for real gas cycle calculations and to Professors Cumpsty and Denton for their kindness in extending to me the hospitality of the Whittle Laboratory after I retired as Vice-Chancellor of the Open University. It is a stimulating academic environment. 

The book chapters have been arranged in a way more or less similar to From Hydrocarbons to Petrochemicals, a book 1 co-authored with the late Professor Hatch and published with Gulf Publishing Company in 1981. Although the book was more addressed to technical personnel and to researchers in the petroleum field, it has been used by many colleges and universities as a reference or as a text for senior and special topics courses. This book is also meant to serve the dual purpose of being a reference as well as a text for chemistry and chemical engineering majors. 

He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1974 and worked on semiconductor manufacturing techniques at the Engineering Research Center of Western Electric Co. until 1976. He then spent a year as a director s postdoctoral staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory and moved to Madison as an assistant professor in 1977. He was chair of the department from 1995 to 1998, and is currently chair of the Committee on Professional Training of the American Chemical Society. His research in chemical reaction dynamics uses lasers to explore and control the course of chemical reactions in both gases and liquids. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. 

One of the persons who has made a great impact on the world of quality improvement and control is the Japanese engineer Professor Genichi... 

COSTAS G. GOGOS, PhO, is Disti ngulshed Research Professor In the Otto York Chemical Engineering Department. New jersey Institute of Technology, and Chemical Engineering Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also Chairman of the Board and President Emeritus of the Polymer Processing Institute. 

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