Steinmetz Memorial Lecture

Dr. Anjan Bose
Regents Professor
Washington State University

The Evolution of the Smart Grid from Edison and Steinmetz

Soon after Edison supplied electricity to customers and Steinmetz gave us the ability to analyze large AC circuits, power companies began to create what today has become the smart grid.
Dr. Anjan Bose has over 40 years of experience in industry and academia as an engineer, educator and administrator. He is well known as a technical leader in power grid control, and as a researcher in electric power engineering.
He is Regents Professor at Washington State University, where he also served as the Dean of Engineering and Architecture. In 2012–13 he served as
a senior advisor to the U.S. Department
of Energy in the Obama administration.
He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE. He was the recipient of the Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award, the Third Millennium Medal and the Herman Halperin Electric Transmission and Distribution Award from the IEEE.

Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Promise of Nanomaterials for Thermoelectric Applications

Tuesday, May 1, 2012
at 7:30 PM in the Nott Memorial
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Professor Mildred Dresselhaus is a native of the Bronx, and attended New York City public schools through junior high school, and Hunter College High School. She began her independent career in 1960 as a member of the research staff at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory after her PhD at the University of Chicago (1958) and a two-year postdoc at Cornell University. During that time she switched from research on superconductivity to magneto-optics, and carried out a series of experiments which led to a fundamental understanding of the electronic structure of semi-metals, especially graphite. This led to her appointment as an MIT faculty member and eventually to appointment as an Institute Professor in the departments of Physics and Electrical Engineering. She served as the Director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy in 2000-01, and has been an officer in many national organizations in physics, engineering, and related areas. Honors and awards include 28 honorary doctorates worldwide, including one from Union College. Other honors include the National Medal of Science, the Nicholson Medal for Humanitarian Service, the Compton Award, and most recently the Fermi Prize.
Professor Dresselhaus’s research over the years has covered a wide range of topics in condensed matter and materials physics. She is best known for her work on carbon science and carbon nanostructures, as well as nanoscience and nanotechnology more generally. She is also one of the researchers responsible for the resurgence of the thermoelectrics research field through her early work on low-dimensional thermoelectricity in the early 1990s. She co-chaired a Department of Energy study on “Basic Research Needs for the Hydrogen Economy” in 2003 and more recently co-chaired the National Academy Decadal Study of Condensed Matter and Materials Physics. She has co-authored more than 1400 publications including books, book chapters, invited review articles, and peer-reviewed journal articles. She is co-inventor on five US patents. Dr. Dresselhaus remains involved in activities that promote the increased participation of women in science and engineering. She is an enthusiastic chamber music player where she plays violin and viola, and enjoys spending time with her husband, four children, and five grandchildren. Link to flyer and dinner invitation.

Dr. Leonard Kleinrock

Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA

A Brief History of the Internet

Monday, October 18, 2010
7:30pm

Nott Memorial
Union College
Schenectady, New York

In this presentation we discuss the history and future of the Internet. The early work on packet switching is traced and then a brief description of the critical events in the growth of the Internet is given. We then present a vision of where the Internet is heading with a focus on the edge where user participation, flexible applications and services, and innovation are appearing. We foresee a network with extreme mobility, ubiquity, personalization, adaptivity, video addiction and surprising applications as yet unimagined.

Professor Leonard Kleinrock is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA. Known as a “Father of the Internet”, he developed the mathematical theory of packet networks, the technology underpinning the Internet, while a graduate student at MIT. This was in the period 1960-1962, nearly a decade before the birth of the Internet which occurred in his laboratory when his Host computer at UCLA became the first node of the Internet in September 1969. He wrote the first paper and published the first book on the subject; he also directed the transmission of the first message ever to pass over the Internet. He was listed by the Los Angeles Times in 1999 as among the “50 People Who Most Influenced Business This Century”. He was also listed as among the 33 most influential living Americans in the December 2006 Atlantic Monthly. Kleinrock’s work was further recognized when he received the 2007 National Medal of Science, the highest honor for achievement in science bestowed by the President of the United States. This Medal was awarded “for fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks, for the functional specification of packet switching which is the foundation of the Internet Technology, for mentoring generations of students and for leading the commercialization of technologies that have transformed the world.”

Leonard Kleinrock received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1963. He has served as a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles since then, serving as Chairman of the department from 1991-1995. He received his BEE degree from CCNY in 1957. and his MS degree from MIT in 1959. He is also the recipient of a number of Honorary Doctorates across the world. He was the first President and Co-founder of Linkabit Corporation, the co-founder of Nomadix, Inc., and Founder and Chairman of TTI/Vanguard, an advanced technology forum organization. He has published over 250 papers and authored six books on a wide array of subjects, including packet switching networks, packet radio networks, local area networks, broadband networks, gigabit networks, nomadic computing, performance evaluation, and peer-to-peer networks. During his tenure at UCLA, Dr. Kleinrock has supervised the research for 47 Ph.D. students and numerous M.S. students. These former students now form a core group of the world’s most advanced networking experts.

Dr. Kleinrock is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an IEEE fellow, an ACM fellow, an INFORMS fellow, an IEC fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and a founding member of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council. Among his many honors, he is the recipient of the National Medal of Science, the L.M. Ericsson Prize, the NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize, the Marconi International Fellowship Award, the Dan David Prize, the Okawa Prize, the IEEE Internet Millennium Award, the ORSA Lanchester Prize, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the NEC Computer and Communications Award, the Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award, the CCNY Townsend Harris Medal, the CCNY Electrical Engineering Award, the UCLA Outstanding Faculty Member Award, the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, the UCLA Faculty Research Lecturer, the INFORMS President’s Award, the ICC Prize Paper Award, the IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award, and the IEEE Harry M. Goode Award.

Dr. Lawrence L. Kazmerski
Executive Director, Science and Technology Partnerships, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Solar Photovoltaics Technology: The Beginning of the Revolution

Monday, April 27, 2009
7:30 PM

Nott Memorial
Union College
Schenectady, New York

Lawrence L. Kazmerski is Executive Director, Science and Technology Partnerships at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado – having served as Director of the National Center for Photovoltaics for the period 1999-2008. He received his B.S.E.E. in 1967, M.S.E.E. in 1968, and his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1970 – all from the University of Notre Dame. He served in a postdoctoral position at the University of Notre Dame Radiation Research Laboratory (Atomic Energy Commission), January through August 1971, and was on the electrical engineering faculty of the University of Maine before coming to SERI (NREL) in 1977. His research at Maine included NSF- and ERDA-funded work in thin-film photovoltaics and the report of the first thin-film copper-indium-diselenide (CIS) solar cell. He was SERI’s first staff member in photovoltaics, hired specifically to establish efforts in the characterization of photovoltaic materials and devices; he led NREL efforts in measurements and characterization for more than 20 years. He has held adjunct professorships at the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Denver. Dr. Kazmerski has published over 320 journal papers in the areas of solar cells, thin films, semiconductor materials and devices, surface and interface analysis, molecular beam epitaxy, semiconductor defects, scanning probe microscopy, nanoscale technology, high-temperature superconductivity, solar and photovoltaics technologies, and solar hydrogen. He has authored or edited four books, and serves on the editorial board of several journals, and he has more than 160 invited presentations at international conferences, workshops, and seminars. He was co-founder and editor of the journal SOLAR CELLS, published by Elsevier-Sequoia (1979-1991). Kazmerski is Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. He has four R&D 100 Awards. He is active in the IEEE, AVS, MRS, APS, ISES, and ASES. Kazmerski was the recipient of the Peter Mark Memorial Award of the AVS in 1981 and IEEE William R. Cherry Award in 1993. He has received several international recognitions for his work in solar photovoltaics. Kazmerski is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a Fellow of the AVS, and a Fellow of the International Energy Foundation (IEF). His is a Distinguished Lecturer of the AVS (1999-present). In 2000, Kazmerski was recognized as a Honorary Member of the AVS for his contributions to science and the Society. Kazmerski was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. He received the World PV Award from the international PV communities representing the Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the U.S. for outstanding leadership and contributions to the worldwide advancement of photovoltaic science and technology in 2006. In September 2006, he was recognized with the Nelson W. Taylor Award for Materials Science by Penn State University. He received the 2007 Karl W. Boer Medalist for contributions to solar energy, and he is the recipient of the 2008 ASES Charles Greeley Abbot Award for outstanding leadership and scientific excellence in the research and development of photovoltaics. Recently, Kazmerski was inducted into the Environmental Hall of Fame in the Field of Solar Energy (Photovoltaics Technology). In December 2008, he was the United Kingdom ISES David Hall Memorial Lecturer for his contributions to international photovoltaic R&D. Kazmerski is Visiting Professor of Solar Energy at the University of Southampton in the U.K., and in January 2009, he was elected as Honorary Professor at Stromstad Academy in Sweden.

Tod Machover

Professor of Music and Media at MIT, delivers the 69th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture

Enabling Music Expression for Everyone

Monday, October 15, 2007
7:30 PM
Memorial Chapel
Union College
Schenectady, New York

Tod Machover – called “America’s Most Wired Composer by The Los Angeles Times, is widely recognized as one of the most significant and innovative composers of his generation, and is also celebrated for inventing new technology for music. He studied with Elliott Carter at The Juilliard School, was the first Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris, and is currently Professor of Music and Media at the MIT Media Lab and also Visiting Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Machover’s music has been commissioned and performed by many of the world’s most prominent soloists and ensembles, including Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera, the BBC Symphony, the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Boston Pops, the Ying Quartet, and cellist Matt Haimovitz. He has been particularly noted for his large-scale interactive media projects such as the science fiction opera VALIS, the Brain Opera, and Toy Symphony, as well as for the design of creative music tools such as Hyperscore. Machover is currently working on two new operas: the robotic Death and the Powers, with an original libretto by U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, and Skellig, based on the award-winning novel by David Almond.

Engineering as part of a Liberal Education

Monday, April 16, 2007
at 7:30 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Bill Wulf received the first Computer Science Ph.D. ever awarded at the University of Virginia in 1968. He then joined Carnegie-Mellon University as Assistant Professor of Computer Science, becoming Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975. In 1981 he left Carnegie-Mellon and founded Tartan Laboratories and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1988. In 1988-1990 he was Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation. In 1990 he returned to the University of Virginia as AT&T Professor and University Professor. Bill Wulf is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he was elected President of the National Academy of Engineering, which operates under a congressional charter and presidential executive orders that call on it to provide advice to the government on issues of science and engineering. He has directed over 25 Ph.D. theses and is the author or co-author of three books, two patents and over 100 papers.

Dennis Woodford

President of Electranix, delivers the 67th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:

Engineers and the Strength of Our National Communities

Monday, October 24, 2005
at 7:30 PM in the Nott Memorial
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Dennis Woodford was born in Melbourne, Australia (’45) and graduated from the University of Melbourne (’66), and the University of Manitoba with a Master of Science (’73). He was Special Studies Engineer in Transmission Planning of Manitoba Hydro where he worked on the Winnipeg – Twin Cities 500 kV interconnection and the Nelson River HVDC project. He is the original developer of the PSCAD/EMTDC simulation software, which he started in 1975 while at Manitoba Hydro.

He joined the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre as Executive Director (’86-’91) and is now President of Elextranix Corporation, a consulting company based in Winnipeg. He is a registered Professional Engineer with the Province of Manitoba and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba.

He is the recipient of the IEEE Power Engineering Society Uno Lamm Award. He is Chairman of the IEEE Subcommittee on HVDC and FACTS, and is active in CIGRE.

An individual can have a profound and everlasting impact on our society, and engineers cannot be left out in this regard. This lecture will explore how engineers have influenced us and set paths that have strengthened our roles as pillars of our nations.

Dr. Paul M. Horn

IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research, delivers the 66th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:

The Future of Information Technology
Monday, October 13, 2003
at 7:00 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Dr. Paul M. Horn oversees the world’s largest and most prolific research organization dedicated to information technology, with 3,000 researchers at eight labs worldwide. Under Horn’s leadership as senior vice-president and director, IBM Research has produced an unmatched string of technological breakthroughs, including the chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue, the world’s first copper chip, the giant magneto-resistive head (GMR) and strained silicon (a discovery that allows chips to run up to 35% faster). A solid state physicist by training, Horn has also led IBM Research into a distinctly cross-disciplinary Grand Challenge with project Blue Gene – a $100 million dollar effort to build the worlds first petafolp-scale computer for the express purpose of helping to understand how human proteins fold.

In addition, Horn has implemented a unique management system which views as inextricably linked the need to conduct exploratory research and the delivery of marketplace-ready technology. As a result, IBM Research consistently speeds the flow of innovation through IBM’s product groups to the market while pursuing research areas likely to yield groundbreaking or even disruptive technologies in a number of key areas including semiconductors, data management, servers and middleware.

Horn is currently focusing the division on several crucial areas of research: the ongoing grand challenge for the I/T industry to build autonomic computing systems, delivery of the technologies to support IBM’s e-business on demand strategy, the establishment of Services Research as a cutting-edge area of bona fide scientific inquiry, and the exploration of novel modes of storage, processing and computing, such as nanomechanical devices, atomic-scale manipulation, carbon nanotube structures and so-called superhuman speech systems.

Autonomic Computing seeks to define and build computing systems that reduce I/T complexity for users by functioning in a manner similar to our bodies, adapting automatically to a wide range of circumstances, but without conscious intervention. Such an approach, along with technologies that allow business processes to be modeled and optimized in real-time, will support the flexibility inherent in the vision for on demand enterprises.

In 2002, Horn announced the formation of On Demand Innovation Services, an organization with IBM’s Research division where scientists work directly with customers as consultants to gather real-word requirements and problems to fuel research projects. Horn views this as the vanguard for the next exciting area of I/T research.

Horn was previously vice president and lab director of IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, where he was credited with tightly linking research innovation with the corporations storage development operation.

Horn graduated from Clarkson College of Technology and received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Rochester in 1973. Prior to joining IBM in 1979, Horn was a professor of physics in the James Franck Institute and the Physics Department and at the University of Chicago. Dr. Horn is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow from 1974-1978. He is a former Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters and has published over 85 scientific and technical papers.

Horn has received numerous awards including the 1988 Bertram Eugene Warren award from the American Crystallographic Association, the 2000 Distinguished Leadership award from the New York Hall of Science, the 2002 Hutchison Medal from the University of Rochester, and the 2002 Pake Prize from the American Physical Society. In 2002 he was also named as one of Americas top technical leaders by Scientific American Magazine. He is also a member of numerous professional committees including the Clarkson Industry University Board of Trustees, the UC Berkeley Industrial Advisory Board, the Gallaudet University Advisory Board, and is a trustee of the New York Hall of Science and the Committee for Economic Development.

1925 – Dr. Michael I. Pupin
Law, Description and Hypothesis in the Electrical Science

1926 – Dr. Ernest J. Berg
The Solution of Transient Phenomena by Elementary Mathematics

1927 – Dr. Robert A. Millikan
Spectroscopic Prediction

1928 – Dr. Max Mason
Substitutes for Experience

1929 – Dr. Dexter S. Kimball
Modem Engineering Economics

1930 – Dr. William E. Wickenden
Discipline of Discipleship

1932 – Dr. Karl T. Compton
The Battle of the Alchemists

1934 – Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees
Scientific Thought and Social Reconstruction

1935 – Dr. Robert E. Doherty
An Undeveloped Phase of Engineering Education

1936 – Dr. Gerard Swope
An Engineering View of and from Steinmetz

1937 – Dr. Harold G. Moulton
Engineering Progress and Economic Progress

1938 – Mr. Igor I. Sikorsky
Science and the Future of Aviation

1939 – Dr. Frank B. Jewett
The Technical Significance of the First Transcontinental Telephone Line

1941 – Dr. Frank Howard Lahey
Modem Medicine and Surgery-Its Progress and Place in the Community

1942 – Dr. Comfort Avery Adams
Cooperation vs. War

1943 – Dr. Harold Willis Dodds
Postwar World and the American Tradition

1944 – Dr. Stephen S. Wise
Man Moves Forward

1945 – Dr. Irving Langmuir
Science and Postwar Incentives

1946 – Dr. Sanford A. Moss
Because I Know It’s True

1947 – Dr. Arthur H. Compton
The Birth of Atomic Energy and Its Human Meaning

1948 – Dr. Philip Sporn
Potentialities of the Electrical Industry in Shaping the Destiny of America

1949 – Dr. Kirtley F. Mather
Natural Resources and Human Progress

1950 – Dr. Charles E. Wilson
The Moral Aspects of Scientific Progress

1952 – Dr. Hollis L. Caswell
The Great Reappraisal of Public Education

1953 – Dr. Harold S. Osborn
What Is Coming in Tele-Communications

1954 – Dr. Charles Allen Thomas
Science, Progress and the Human Mind

1955 – Dr. Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam
The Nature of the Contemporary Crisis

1956 – Dr. Cornelius Packard Rhoads
The Social and Economic Significance of Medical Research

1957 – Admiral William Morrow Fechteler, Ph.D.
The Professional and Technical Requirements of the Armed Forces

1958 – Dr. Joseph Allen Hynek
Man’s Satellites: Doorway to Space

1959 – Dr. Simon Ramo
Space Conquest and the New Technical Age

1960 – Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth
Management and Men

1962 – Dr. Claude E. Shannon
The Third Frontier of Science

1963 – Vice-Admiral H.G. Rickover
Then individual in a Free Society

1964 – Dr. J. Herbert Hollomon
The Changing Role Science and Technology Play in the National Well-Being

1965 – Mr. Walker Lee Cisler
Expanding Horizons in Electric Power

1966 – Dr. William Shockley
Mental Tools for Scientific Thinking

1967 – Dr. Edward C. Welsh
Benefits of the Aerospace Revolution

1968 – Dr. Ralph W. Sockman
Computer Age Morality

1969 – Mr. J. Erik Jonsson
From the Heart

1970 – Mr. Lelan F. Sillin, Jr.
Changing Values in a Technological Society

1971 – Mr. Patrick E. Haggerty
The Productive Society

1972 – Prof. Harold W. Bibber, Mr. Emil J. Remscheid, & Mr. Joseph S. Hayden
Recollections of Charles P. Steinmetz

1973 – Dr. John Bardeen
Solid State Physics: Accomplishments and Future Prospects

1975 – Dr. Richard W. Roberts
Energy: From Steinmetz to the 70’s

1976 – Dr. Jay W. Forrester
Dynamics of Social Systems

1977 – Dr. Hans A. Bethe
The Necessity of Fission Power

1978 – Dr. Merril Eisenbud
The Human Environment: Past, Present, and Future

1979 – Dr. Myron Tribus
Seven Commandments for the Survival of a Technological Society

1980 – Mr. Reginald H. Jones
Needed: A Renaissance in Technical Creativity

1983 – Dr. Margaret N. Maxey
America’s Energy Odyssey; Between Energy and Entropy

1984 – Dr. Roland W. Schmitt
The Next Scientific Revolution: The Conquest of Complexity

1985 – Mr. Erich Bloch
Basic Research and Economic Health: The Coming Challenge

1986 – Dr. Ivar Giaever
Pathological Science II

1987 – Dr. Ernest L. Boyer
College: Making the Connections

1988 – Dr. Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Fractals: From Geometry to Physics and On to Art

1989 – Dr. Robert M. White
Technology and Global Environment

1990 – Dr. Eleanor Baum
Defying Stereotypes: Training the Next Decade of Engineers

1991 – Dr. Walter L. Robb
Imaging the Human Body -The Schenectady-Milwaukee Miracle

1992 – Dr. Andrew C. Kadak
The Atom and Human Values

1993 – Dr. Ray Dolby
The Quest for Recording Quality

1994 – Dr. Jerrier A. Haddad
The Engineering Community – Pressure, Evolution, Opportunities, Problems

1995 – Dr. Edward A. Parrish
Engineering Education for a Changing Engineering Profession

1996 – Dr. William W. Hogan
The Revolution in the Electricity Industry

2001 – Dr. Charles Concordia
Engineering and Society: Logic and Politics