Monday, November 2, 2020
4:30 p.m.
On Zoom
Engineer of the Future
By Prof. Emeritus Yunus Cengel, University of Nevada.
Abstract
Engineering is about innovation and the basic human trait that drives the development of new technologies and innovative products, processes, or services is creativity. The fast-paced information age that we are in requires highly trained and highly skilled workers and a culture of innovation, with an ecosystem to maintain it. The new knowledge generated and the new technologies developed continue to shape tomorrow’s highly technological world.
In this dynamic and highly innovative environment, the life of products as well as professions is getting shorter and shorter. There is continual change with no end in sight. Artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning, and machine-to-people communication are forming the new platform for tomorrow’s workforce and super smart societies. The walls between disciplines are coming down. The most innovative products of the future are expected to be at the cross-sections of different disciplines. Therefore, team work, people skills, and the 21st century skills are becoming increasingly important.
The future engineer is expected to be T-shaped, with strong vertical skills in a specific discipline, topped by a broad base of cross-cutting knowledge and skills across the disciplines. Skills like critical thinking, creativity, communication and complex problem solving are becoming vitally important to be functional in tomorrow’s highly innovative world. Developing skills is becoming more important than acquiring knowledge. Today’s engineering students need to merge technical skills with soft skills to become the well-rounded engineer of tomorrow.
About the speaker
Yunus Çengel is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno, U.S. and the founding dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Adnan Menderes University in Aydin, Turkey. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University in USA. Before joining ADU in 2012, he held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Yildiz Technical University YTU and as Advisor to President at Scientific and Technological Research Council TUBITAK on international cooperations. Professor Cengel served as the assistant director and director of the Industrial Assessment Center at UNR for eight years. He also served as the advisor to several government organizations and private companies on energy efficiency, energy policies, and education reform.
Professor Çengel is the author or coauthor of the widely adopted textbooks:
- Thermodynamics: An Engineering Approach
- Fundamentals of Thermal-Fluid Sciences
- Heat and Mass Transfer: Fundamentals and Applications
- Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications
- Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers
- Fundamentals and Applications of Renewable Energy
- Energy Efficiency and Management for Engineers,
All published by McGraw-Hill. Some of his textbooks have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian, Greek, and French.
Dr. Çengel has delivered several keynote lectures at technical conferences and invited seminars at academic institutions. He is the recipient of several outstanding teacher awards, and he has received the ASEE Meriam/Wiley Distinguished Author Award for excellence in authorship twice.