Northeastern University Hosts the 2012 NSF CMMI Engineering Research and Innovation Conference

Northeastern University’s College of Engineering hosted the National Science Foundation’s 2012 Engineering Research and Innovation Conference for the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) from July 9-12, 2012. Prof. Sara Wadia-Fascetti led the conference, which included a series of pre-conference events, was attended by over 1200 participants and students. The focus of this year’s conference, “Engineering Transformation through Partnerships,” stressed the importance of interdisciplinary partnerships with academia, industry, and government. The conference was held in conjunction with Quake Summit 2012, the conference of the NSF-sponsored George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). Several faculty members from COE presented on-going research projects at both conferences, highlighting several projects recently awarded to the faculty from the National Science Foundation. President Joseph Aoun delivered the keynote address at CMMI 2012 in which he discussed challenges and opportunities within academia and stressed the importance of partnerships to address complex issues and global pressures being faced by universities.


Source: News @ Northeastern

Stu­dents of all ages came together on Sunday to kick off the National Sci­ence Foundation’s annual Engi­neering Research and Inno­va­tion Con­fer­ence, which is being hosted by North­eastern University’s Col­lege of Engineering.

The con­fer­ence will focus on trans­forming the engi­neering field through the for­ma­tion of robust part­ner­ships with acad­emia, industry and society.

Pre-​​conference events included K-​​12 STEM out­reach activ­i­ties; a graduate-​​level boot camp ded­i­cated to helping stu­dents build their future career net­works; and a future fac­ulty work­shop hosted by North­eastern ADVANCE, an NSF-​​funded pro­gram designed to increase the rep­re­sen­ta­tion and advance­ment of women and minori­ties in aca­d­emic sci­ence and engi­neering careers.

Michael Bunis, a lit­i­gator with Choate Hall and Stewart LLP, dis­cussed intellectual-​​property con­cerns; Penn State Uni­ver­sity asso­ciate pro­fessor Michael Alley offered strate­gies for effec­tively pre­senting engi­neering research; and free­lance health and sci­ence jour­nal­ists Carol Morton and Karen Wein­traub lead an inter­ac­tive ses­sion aimed toward improving engi­neers’ engage­ment with media and the public.

Some 2000 engi­neers from around the country will con­verge at the Hynes Con­ven­tion Center on Monday to present NSF-​​funded research through lec­tures and poster ses­sions. Ten North­eastern grantees are among the pre­sen­ters, including engi­neering pro­fessor Con­stan­tinos Mavroidis; civil and envi­ron­mental engi­neering pro­fessor Peter Furth; and asso­ciate pro­fessor of mechan­ical and indus­trial engi­neering Yung Joon Jung. Both grad­uate and under­grad­uate stu­dents will present another 21 research posters.

North­eastern Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun will address the atten­dees in a keynote speech focused on the strate­gies with which research uni­ver­si­ties will con­front future funding and sci­en­tific challenges.

Directly fol­lowing the con­fer­ence, the NSF-​​funded George E. Brown Net­work for Earth­quake Engi­neering Sim­u­la­tion will host its annual Quake Summit. The orga­ni­za­tion focuses on devel­oping the inno­va­tions nec­es­sary to reduce the impact of seismic dis­as­ters. North­eastern civil and envi­ron­mental engi­neering pro­fessor Dion­isio Bernal and asso­ciate pro­fessor Mehrdad Sasani will present their research.

Of this year’s con­fer­ence theme, Stephen Director, provost and senior vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­emic affairs, said “part­ner­ships reflect one of Northeastern’s core values from part­nering with industry in edu­ca­tion through our grounding in coop­er­a­tive edu­ca­tion to part­nering with industry, gov­ern­ment and other uni­ver­si­ties that are fun­da­mental to our many cen­ters of excellence.”

Related Faculty: Peter G. Furth, Yung Joon Jung, Dionisio P. Bernal, Mehrdad Sasani

Related Departments:Civil & Environmental Engineering, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering