May 18, 2010 (Hyatt Regency, Crystal City): For its May Section Meeting, the National Capital Section hosted a panel discussion titled Innovation and Grand Challenges for Engineering: Engineering the Tools of Scientific Discovery at the Hyatt hotel in Crystal City, Virginia.

Invited Speakers

Dr. Jayfus Doswell, CEO, Juxtopia LLC (Baltimore, MD), Biology Adjunct Professor, Sojouner Douglass College. Subject: Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Grants

Johann Dobak, P.E., LEED AP,, Alpha Corporation (Dulles, VA), Director, American Consulting Engineers Council (ACEC), Metro Washington DC. Subject: Innovation in Civil Engineering

Kendra Parlock, Global Marketing Manager, Grace Davison Biofuel Technologies (Columbia, MD). Subject: Managing Innovation and Technology in the Workplace

The title for the panel discussion is a reference to Grand Challenges for Engineering, a publication by the National Academy of Engineering. The panel discussion addressed the themes that are significant to our profession—innovation in engineering, competitiveness, and job creation. The panelists addressed the following topic:

In the popular mind, scientists and engineers have distinct job descriptions. Scientists explore, experiment, and discover: engineers create, design, and build. But, in truth, the distinction is blurry and engineers participate in the scientific process of discovery in many ways. Grand experiments and missions of exploration always need engineering expertise to design the tools, instruments, and systems that make it possible to acquire new knowledge about the physical and biological worlds.