Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday! Happy National Engineers Week!

I serve on several national organization boards, and my volunteer services range from oversight of educational quality to technology development to advisory trustee to, well, fun review of what creative people do. This week, I had the privilege to participate as an advisory trustee in the review of technology development for a premier national organization, the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). You see, for 77 years, SwRI has been addressing the engineering and technology needs of the country in all application domains from “deep sea to deep space and everything in between!”  Presentations included “Teaching Computers to Think,” “Next Generation Monitoring Satellites,” “Traumatic Brain Injuries and Brain Health,” “The Role of Hydrogen in a Sustainable Future,” and many more.

Admittedly, the sophisticated sense and feel of the projects were a pleasant reminder of my 20 years of engineering work both at Lawrence Livermore National Labs and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory! Oh, those remarkable engineers at Livermore who enabled crazy physics ideas to materialize and inched us closer to unimaginable realities of modern living. Conceptualizing, designing and building the world’s most accurate lathecapable of machining steel mirrors that were larger than a meter in diameter with submicron accuracy! Or the extreme engineering of NIF, the National Ignition Facility, the largest laser “hammer” ever built that could raise the pressure and temperature of the sample material to those found in the core of the sun: 180 million degrees Fahrenheit and 100 billion Earth atmospheres. Or the supersonic flights that have shrunk distances to virtually nothing or the constellations of satellites that have made communication across the globe so ubiquitous that we don’t even hesitate to dial a conversation across the planet and beyond.

This year’s theme of National Engineers Week is “Design Your Future!” After all, since time immemorial, engineers have done just that: designed the future. To better understand and functionalize the world, engineers have developed tools and contraptions in three principal spaces of size, time and direction. From microscope to telescope, from Nilometer to digital clock, and from astronavigation to compass, men and women of the engineering mindset have discovered and developed remarkable approaches to enable better communication, transportation, commerce, agriculture, ergonomics, health and many other endeavors “from the deep sea to deep space.” In the last century alone, remarkable engineering achievements have contributed much to our world and our lives. It is fair to say that engineers have relentlessly designed and engineered the future.

Whatever their purpose, engineering inventions continue to shape the world around us, and more engineers are needed to address shortages, support new technologies and move us ever forward. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that engineering occupations will grow faster than the average of all other occupations for the next decade. Opportunities are growing particularly in bioengineering and biomedical engineering where growth is projected at 7 percent from 2023 to 2033.

Here at S&T, we have been addressing the need for engineers for many decades, and we continue to evolve and add new programs to meet current and future needs. Our bachelor’s degree in semiconductor engineering was approved earlier this month, which broadens our offerings along with our bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and doctoral degree in bioengineering that were approved last year.

As makers of the future, engineers are the essence of invention and creativity. Inspired to believe and ensuring the following reality, we salute our engineers and remind ourselves that rockets didn’t make space travel possible, engineers did!

Finally, here is your assignment: on the wonderful occasion of National Engineers Week this week, find and hug an engineer today. They have made your life better.

Warmly,

-Mo.

Note to academics: Candidate recommendations for the Missouri S&T Provost are welcome.

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Read previous Friday morning messages.

Check out the latest news from S&T:

• Thank you to employees who weather winter’s challenges
• Recent grad works for company that developed robotic system for mother’s surgery
• Missouri S&T students advance to Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge semi-finals

Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu