Eighty-two of the nation's brightest young engineers have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) 14th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The 2½-day event will bring together engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines. The participants -- from industry, academia, and government -- were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from more than 230 applicants.
"America's competitiveness will largely depend upon the next generation of innovators," said NAE President Charles M. Vest. "The U.S. Frontiers of Engineering program brings some of the country's rising-star engineers, from a diverse range of disciplines, together for an exchange of ideas that will surely help contribute to keeping us at the forefront of technological advancement and may even spark a breakthrough that changes the way we live."
The symposium will be hosted Sept. 18-20 by Sandia National Laboratories at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and will examine emerging nanoelectric devices, cognitive engineering, drug delivery systems, and understanding and countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
A featured speaker will be Alton D. Romig Jr., senior vice president and deputy director for integrated technologies and systems, Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Romig leads engineering and development activities for U.S. programs in nonproliferation, counterintelligence, security, energy and resources, and infrastructure. His expertise in materials science garnered him the National Materials Advancement Award, and he is a member of the NAE.
Sponsors for the 2008 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering are the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Defense (DDR&E-Research), the National Science Foundation, Corning Inc., Cummins Inc., The Grainger Foundation, Intel Corp., Microsoft Research, Sun Microsystems Inc., Sandia National Laboratories, and numerous individual donors.
A meeting program and more information about Frontiers of Engineering is available at http://www.nae.edu/frontiers
