Learning from Engineering Disaster

Catalog description

The role of the engineer is to respond to a need by building or creating something along a certain set of guidelines (or specifications) which performs a given function. Just as importantly, that device, plan or creation should perform its function without fail. Everything, however, does eventually fail and, in some cases, fails with catastrophic results. Through discussion and analysis of engineering disasters from nuclear meltdowns to stock market crashes to climate-driven catastrophes, this course will focus on how modern engineers learn from their mistakes in order to create designs that decrease the chance and severity of failure. The impact of engineers’ values and ethics, as well as the crucial role of diversity and inclusiveness on successful engineering design, will be discussed in detail.