Dr. Charles Proteus Steinmetz Memorial Lecture Series

Dr. Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923) is one of the greatest contributors to the growth of the electrical industry in the United States. As a former national president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and as a distinguished engineer who performed his work in Schenectady New York, it is fitting that the Schenectady Section of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers should commemorate him.

Dr. Steinmetz came to the United States in 1890, completely unknown and impoverished, and in a span of 33 years became world renowned for his contributions to the electrical industry. Engineers will remember him best for his investigations in the fields of machine design, lighting, and the symbolic method of alternating current calculations.

Dr. Steinmetz's many friends and admirers created the Steinmetz Memorial Lecture Endowment Fund in 1925. Since then, more than sixty eminent scientists and engineers have presented public lectures on the Union College campus in Schenectady, New York in honor of Charles Proteus Steinmetz.

Steinmetz Memorial Lecturers include such leaders and innovators as Robert A. Millikan, Igor I. Sikorsky, Irving Langmuir, Arthur H. Compton, Simon Ramo, Lillian M. Gilbreth, Claude E. Shannon, Vice-Admiral H.G. Rickover, William Shockley, Jay W. Forrester, Hans A. Bethe, Benoit B. Mandelbrot, and Ray Dolby.

• This Year's Lecture
• The History of the Steinmetz Memorial Lectures
• The GE Years of Steinmetz

The 2007 Lecture

The 2006-2007 Lecture

Dr. William Wulf, President, National Academy of Engineering, delivers the 68th Steinmetz Memorial

"Engineering as part of a Liberal Education?"

Monday, April 16, 2007
at 7:30 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Bill Wulf received the first Computer Science Ph.D. ever awarded at the University of Virginia in 1968. He then joined Carnegie-Mellon University as Assistant Professor of Computer Science, becoming Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975. In 1981 he left Carnegie-Mellon and founded Tartan Laboratories and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1988. In 1988-1990 he was Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation. In 1990 he returned to the University of Virginia as AT&T Professor and University Professor. Bill Wulf is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he was elected President of the National Academy of Engineering, which operates under a congressional charter and presidential executive orders that call on it to provide advice to the government on issues of science and engineering. He has directed over 25 Ph.D. theses and is the author or co-author of three books, two patents and over 100 papers.

The 2005 Lecture

Dennis Woodford, President of Electranix, delivers the 67th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:


“Engineers and the Strength of Our National Communities”

Monday, October 24, 2005
at 7:30 PM in the Nott Memorial
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Dennis Woodford was born in Melbourne, Australia ('45) and graduated from the University of Melbourne ('66), and the University of Manitoba with a Master of Science ('73). He was Special Studies Engineer in Transmission Planning of Manitoba Hydro where he worked on the Winnipeg - Twin Cities 500 kV interconnection and the Nelson River HVDC project. He is the original developer of the PSCAD/EMTDC simulation software, which he started in 1975 while at Manitoba Hydro.

He joined the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre as Executive Director ('86-'91) and is now President of Elextranix Corporation, a consulting company based in Winnipeg. He is a registered Professional Engineer with the Province of Manitoba and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba.

He is the recipient of the IEEE Power Engineering Society Uno Lamm Award. He is Chairman of the IEEE Subcommittee on HVDC and FACTS, and is active in CIGRE.

An individual can have a profound and everlasting impact on our society, and engineers cannot be left out in this regard. This lecture will explore how engineers have influenced us and set paths that have strengthened our roles as pillars of our nations.

The 2003 Lecture

Dr. Paul M. Horn, IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research, delivers the 66th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:


“The Future of Information Technology”

Monday, October 13, 2003
at 7:00 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York

Dr. Paul M. Horn oversees the world's largest and most prolific research organization dedicated to information technology, with 3,000 researchers at eight labs worldwide. Under Horn's leadership as senior vice-president and director, IBM Research has produced an unmatched string of technological breakthroughs, including the chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue, the world's first copper chip, the giant magneto-resistive head (GMR) and strained silicon (a discovery that allows chips to run up to 35% faster). A solid state physicist by training, Horn has also led IBM Research into a distinctly cross-disciplinary Grand Challenge with project Blue Gene - a $100 million dollar effort to build the worlds first petafolp-scale computer for the express purpose of helping to understand how human proteins fold.

In addition, Horn has implemented a unique management system which views as inextricably linked the need to conduct exploratory research and the delivery of marketplace-ready technology. As a result, IBM Research consistently speeds the flow of innovation through IBM's product groups to the market while pursuing research areas likely to yield groundbreaking or even disruptive technologies in a number of key areas including semiconductors, data management, servers and middleware.

Horn is currently focusing the division on several crucial areas of research: the ongoing grand challenge for the I/T industry to build autonomic computing systems, delivery of the technologies to support IBM's e-business on demand strategy, the establishment of Services Research as a cutting-edge area of bona fide scientific inquiry, and the exploration of novel modes of storage, processing and computing, such as nanomechanical devices, atomic-scale manipulation, carbon nanotube structures and so-called superhuman speech systems.

Autonomic Computing seeks to define and build computing systems that reduce I/T complexity for users by functioning in a manner similar to our bodies, adapting automatically to a wide range of circumstances, but without conscious intervention. Such an approach, along with technologies that allow business processes to be modeled and optimized in real-time, will support the flexibility inherent in the vision for on demand enterprises.

In 2002, Horn announced the formation of On Demand Innovation Services, an organization with IBM's Research division where scientists work directly with customers as consultants to gather real-word requirements and problems to fuel research projects. Horn views this as the vanguard for the next exciting area of I/T research.

Horn was previously vice president and lab director of IBM Researchs Almaden Research Center in San Jose, where he was credited with tightly linking research innovation with the corporations storage development operation.

Horn graduated from Clarkson College of Technology and received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Rochester in 1973. Prior to joining IBM in 1979, Horn was a professor of physics in the James Franck Institute and the Physics Department and at the University of Chicago. Dr. Horn is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow from 1974-1978. He is a former Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters and has published over 85 scientific and technical papers.

Horn has received numerous awards including the 1988 Bertram Eugene Warren award from the American Crystallographic Association, the 2000 Distinguished Leadership award from the New York Hall of Science, the 2002 Hutchison Medal from the University of Rochester, and the 2002 Pake Prize from the American Physical Society. In 2002 he was also named as one of Americas top technical leaders by Scientific American Magazine. He is also a member of numerous professional committees including the Clarkson Industry University Board of Trustees, the UC Berkeley Industrial Advisory Board, the Gallaudet University Advisory Board, and is a trustee of the New York Hall of Science and the Committee for Economic Development.
 

The History of the Steinmetz Memorial Lectures
 

1925 - Dr. Michael I. Pupin
          "Law, Description and Hypothesis in the Electrical Science"

1926 - Dr. Ernest J. Berg
          "The Solution of Transient Phenomena by Elementary Mathematics"

1927 - Dr. Robert A. Millikan
          "Spectroscopic Prediction"

1928 - Dr. Max Mason
          "Substitutes for Experience"

1929 - Dr. Dexter S. Kimball
          "Modem Engineering Economics"

1930 - Dr. William E. Wickenden
          "Discipline of Discipleship"

1932 - Dr. Karl T. Compton
          "The Battle of the Alchemists"

1934 - Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees
          "Scientific Thought and Social Reconstruction"

1935 - Dr. Robert E. Doherty
          "An Undeveloped Phase of Engineering Education"

1936 - Dr. Gerard Swope
          "An Engineering View of and from Steinmetz"

1937 - Dr. Harold G. Moulton
          "Engineering Progress and Economic Progress"

1938 - Mr. Igor I. Sikorsky
          "Science and the Future of Aviation"

1939 - Dr. Frank B. Jewett
          "The Technical Significance of the First Transcontinental Telephone Line"

1941 - Dr. Frank Howard Lahey
          "Modem Medicine and Surgery-Its Progress and Place in the Community"

1942 - Dr. Comfort Avery Adams
          "Cooperation vs. War"

1943 - Dr. Harold Willis Dodds
          "Postwar World and the American Tradition"

1944 - Dr. Stephen S. Wise
          "Man Moves Forward"

1945 - Dr. Irving Langmuir
          "Science and Postwar Incentives"

1946 - Dr. Sanford A. Moss
          "Because I Know It's True"

1947 - Dr. Arthur H. Compton
          "The Birth of Atomic Energy and Its Human Meaning"

1948 - Dr. Philip Sporn
          "Potentialities of the Electrical Industry in Shaping the Destiny of America"

1949 - Dr. Kirtley F. Mather
          "Natural Resources and Human Progress"

1950 - Dr. Charles E. Wilson
          "The Moral Aspects of Scientific Progress"

1952 - Dr. Hollis L. Caswell
          "The Great Reappraisal of Public Education"

1953 - Dr. Harold S. Osborn
          "What Is Coming in Tele-Communications"

1954 - Dr. Charles Allen Thomas
          "Science, Progress and the Human Mind"

1955 - Dr. Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam
          "The Nature of the Contemporary Crisis"

1956 - Dr. Cornelius Packard Rhoads
          "The Social and Economic Significance of Medical Research"

1957 - Admiral William Morrow Fechteler, Ph.D.
          "The Professional and Technical Requirements of the Armed Forces"

1958 - Dr. Joseph Allen Hynek
          "Man's Satellites: Doorway to Space"

1959 - Dr. Simon Ramo
          "Space Conquest and the New Technical Age"

1960 - Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth
          "Management and Men"

1962 - Dr. Claude E. Shannon
          "The Third Frontier of Science"

1963 - Vice-Admiral H.G. Rickover
          "Then individual in a Free Society"

1964 - Dr. J. Herbert Hollomon
          "The Changing Role Science and Technology Play in the National Well-Being"

1965 - Mr. Walker Lee Cisler
          "Expanding Horizons in Electric Power"

1966 - Dr. William Shockley
          "Mental Tools for Scientific Thinking"

1967 - Dr. Edward C. Welsh
          "Benefits of the Aerospace Revolution"

1968 - Dr. Ralph W. Sockman
          "Computer Age Morality"

1969 - Mr. J. Erik Jonsson
          "From the Heart"

1970 - Mr. Lelan F. Sillin, Jr.
          "Changing Values in a Technological Society"

1971 - Mr. Patrick E. Haggerty
          "The Productive Society"

1972 - Prof. Harold W. Bibber, Mr. Emil J. Remscheid, & Mr. Joseph S. Hayden
          "Recollections of Charles P. Steinmetz"

1973 - Dr. John Bardeen
          "Solid State Physics: Accomplishments and Future Prospects"

1975 - Dr. Richard W. Roberts
          "Energy: From Steinmetz to the 70’s"

1976 - Dr. Jay W. Forrester
          "Dynamics of Social Systems"

1977 - Dr. Hans A. Bethe
          "The Necessity of Fission Power"

1978 - Dr. Merril Eisenbud
          "The Human Environment: Past, Present, and Future"

1979 - Dr. Myron Tribus
          "Seven Commandments for the Survival of a Technological Society"

1980 - Mr. Reginald H. Jones
          "Needed: A Renaissance in Technical Creativity"

1983 - Dr. Margaret N. Maxey
          "America's Energy Odyssey; Between Energy and Entropy"

1984 - Dr. Roland W. Schmitt
          "The Next Scientific Revolution: The Conquest of Complexity"

1985 - Mr. Erich Bloch
          "Basic Research and Economic Health: The Coming Challenge"

1986 - Dr. Ivar Giaever
          "Pathological Science II"

1987 - Dr. Ernest L. Boyer
          "College: Making the Connections"

1988 - Dr. Benoit B. Mandelbrot
          "Fractals: From Geometry to Physics and On to Art"

1989 - Dr. Robert M. White
          "Technology and Global Environment"

1990 - Dr. Eleanor Baum
          "Defying Stereotypes: Training the Next Decade of Engineers"

1991 - Dr. Walter L. Robb
          "Imaging the Human Body -The Schenectady-Milwaukee Miracle"

1992 - Dr. Andrew C. Kadak
          "The Atom and Human Values"

1993 - Dr. Ray Dolby
          "The Quest for Recording Quality"

1994 - Dr. Jerrier A. Haddad
          "The Engineering Community - Pressure, Evolution, Opportunities, Problems"

1995 - Dr. Edward A. Parrish
          "Engineering Education for a Changing Engineering Profession"

1996 - Dr. William W. Hogan
          "The Revolution in the Electricity Industry"

2001 - Dr. Charles Concordia
          "Engineering and Society: Logic and Politics"

2003 - Dr. Paul M. Horn
          "The Future of Information Technology"

2005 - Dennis Woodford
          "Engineers and the Strength of Our National Communities"

2007 - Dr. William Wulf
            "Engineering as Part of a Liberal Education?"

2007 - Dr. Tod Machover
            "Enabling Music Expression for Everyone"