Newswise — A group of chemical, civil, mechanical, petroleum, and materials engineering organizations have joined forces to address a common concern for all disciplines: how to train the world's future engineering leaders.
The joint effort has resulted in the Emerging Leaders Alliance program, which provides an interdisciplinary community of learning for future engineering and scientific leaders. The Emerging Leaders Alliance will use both hands-on workshops and on-line interaction to train future leaders in basic skills that can be applied in a variety of science and engineering disciplines.
As a first step, the alliance has launched a web site that acts as both an introduction to the program and as a resource for professional career advancement. Visitors can download free webcasts, reports, and other valuable resources to help future engineering leaders understand the current climate of the science and engineering profession and the skills necessary to succeed in it.
Included among the site's free leadership resources are the following webcasts:
"Grand Challenges and Great Contributions for Engineering," recorded by Charles Vest, President of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, specifically for the Emerging Leaders Alliance program
"Sustainable Mobility: The Grand Challenge Webcast," recorded by John Moavenzadeh, Senior Director of the Sustainable Mobility and Strategy World Economic Forum, for the TMS 2008 Annual Meeting
"International Perspectives on 21st Century Engineering Education," recorded by Norman Fortenberry, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education at the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, for the TMS 2008 Annual Meeting
The Emerging Leaders web site can be accessed at http://www.emergingleadersalliance.org. The webcasts, and additional resources from leaders in science and engineering, can be found through the "Leaders Voice" section of the site.
In October, the Emerging Leaders Alliance will hold its first training program in conjunction with the Materials Science & Technology 2008 (MS&T'08) conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Participants in the program will attend workshops on risk assessment; critical thinking and problem solving; team building and coaching; social responsibility and ethics; multicultural, gender, and generational communication; and conflict resolution.
The Emerging Leaders Alliance is funded by the United Engineering Foundation (UEF), which supports engineering and education through grants. The partners in the Emerging Leaders Alliance are four of the UEF member societies: the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the American Society of Civil Engineers; and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME). In addition, AIME's four member societies are also partners in the project: the Association for Iron & Steel Technology; the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration; the Society of Petroleum Engineers; and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS).
TMS took a lead role in developing and deploying the Emerging Leaders Alliance web site, and several of the site's resources were taken from the TMS 2008 Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in March. TMS is the professional organization encompassing the entire range of materials science and engineering, from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials. Included among its 9,500 professional and student members are metallurgical and materials engineers, scientists, researchers, educators, and administrators from six continents.
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