Online Session Locator

Session Description

PROGRAM / AGENDA

Welcome - Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hoyer (Secretary General, IFEES | Executive Director, GEDC)

Introduction Remarks - Luis Manuel Sánchez Ruiz (IFEES President, UPV Spain)

Peace Engineering Consortium (PEC) - Dr. Ramiro Jordan (UNM)

We will provide information about the Peace Engineering Consortium (PEC) Pitch to the ERVA - the NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance. “ERVA is an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of something truly transformative. It enables the engineering community to unify under the common theme of working together to address society’s greatest challenges,” said Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, Ph.D., ERVA Principal Investigator and Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

ERVA invited the PEC to submit a pitch for a visioning event along with an executive summary. Due to the new 2025 USA administration, the pitch was declined until ”new winds return to the USA. "

In partnership with the IEEE Education Society, we invite authors to contribute to the Handbook of Modern Peace Engineering: Technology, Finance and Design - Quantitative approaches based on emerging technologies.

The Peace Engineering Consortium was established following the First Global Peace Engineering Conference, WEEF-GEDC 2018. The PEC welcomes all institutions and concerned global citizens. Since its formation in November 2018, consortium members have gathered (either virtually or in person) nearly every Friday morning to identify and expand the Peace Engineering Global Challenges. PEC members are developing a comprehensive body of knowledge that includes ontology, scalability, lifelong learning, metrics, peace technologies, tools, digital skills, context, biases, and digital repositories, all adhering to TRUST (Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability, Technology) best practices to ensure the reliability of data. The PEC also focuses on research and development to foster innovation and creativity. Currently, we are concentrating on combating misinformation and disinformation, especially as the spread of falsehoods grows exponentially due to global interest groups.

Educating Trustworthy Engineers - Dr. Yannis Yortsos (USC)

Exponential (and even faster) changes in technology hold the promise of solving grand-challenge-like problems, but also contain the seeds of powerful unintended consequences. Today’s engineers need to understand such impact of technology, thus to combine outstanding technical competence with outstanding character, leading to trustworthiness, sorely needed in today’s fast changing world. This is particularly topical given the extraordinary advances in AI and other Advanced Computing areas. This session reviews the current state in this important topic and how engineering schools both in the United States and across the Globe address it in education and research. The key theme is that technology and engineering are inseparable from the examination of their impact on values, ethics, and society.

The Expanding Role of AI in Engineering and Society - Dr. Anupam Joshi (UMBC)

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming every field, including Engineering. In this session, Dr. Joshi will explore the evolving role of AI in engineering education and pedagogy. He will also highlight how AI is being leveraged to tackle complex societal challenges, drawing on current research at UMBC. Two case studies will be discussed: modeling wildfires, which involves addressing multiscale and multiphysics phenomena from embers at the centimeter level to smoke dispersion over kilometers, and detecting the construction of narratives in modern social media, particularly where societal divisions are targeted. These examples illustrate the diverse and powerful ways AI is shaping both technical and social domains.

Celebrating “Women Engineering Day” - Dr. Kammy Sanghera (GMU)
● Video presentations by
○ Dr. Sushma Kulkarni, GEDC Chair (NICMAR) and
○ Dr. Paloma Diaz, GEDC Chair-Elect (Univ. Carlos III de Madrid)

International Collaboration Discussion - Dr. Zoran Cekic (GEDC ExComm Member, Polytechnics UDG Montenegro)

Engineering Education Review (EER) Journal Update - Prof. Zhang Qilun (Tsinghua University Alumni)

Final Comments - Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hoyer

Speakers

1. Dr. Ramiro Jordan P.E.

   University of New Mexico

   Dr. Ramiro Jordan is a scientist, innovator, educator and entrepreneur. He is a faculty member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at the University of New Mexico, and is currently the Associate Dean of Engineering for International Programs. His research activities include sustainability, Smart Grid, cognitive radio, multi-dimensional signal processing, and software development. Dr. Jordan is a founder of the Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC), a successful non-profit organization that was created in 1990 with the mission to accelerate STEM education, R&D and entrepreneurship in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. ISTEC is composed of over 100 educational, research, industrial, and multilateral organizations throughout the Americas and Iberia, and is now reaching into the global arena.

2. Dr. Yannis C. Yortsos

   University of Southern California

   Yannis C. Yortsos is the Dolley Professor of Chemical Engineering, and since 2005, serves as the Dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and holds the Dean’s Zohrab Kaprielian Chair. He received a BS (Diploma) from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and MS and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology, all in chemical engineering.
   Yortsos was elected in 2008 to the US National Academy of Engineering, to the Academy of Athens (as a corresponding member- a term used for members living outside Greece) in 2013, and as a Foreign Fellow of the Indian Academy of Engineering in 2024. In 2014, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and in 2017, the ASEE President’s Award. Along with two other colleagues, he co-founded in 2009 the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program, which has spread at different times to as many as 100 engineering schools worldwide and, in 2022, received the Gordon Prize of the NAE. In the same year, he received a Los Angeles area Emmy for the documentary Lives, not Grades. In 2023, Yortsos received the Chairman’s Award from HENAAC (Great in Minds in STEM), and in 2024, the Claire Felbinger Award of ABET on Diversity and Inclusion. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and an Honorary member of the AIME. Since 2022, he has served as the editor-in-chief of PNAS Nexus, the first journal of the National Academies established in more than 100 years.
   Yortsos has served as a member of the Engineering Deans Council (2011-2017), led in 2015 the ASEE Diversity Initiative, now a signature program within ASEE, and also served on the Executive Board of the GEDC, the latest term between 2022 and 2024. As dean of engineering, he has launched a number of educational and research initiatives, including establishing gender parity in the engineering entering class at USC Viterbi for six consecutive years since 2019.

3. Prof. Anupam Joshi

   University of Maryland Baltimore County

   Anupam Joshi is the Oros Family Professor and Acting Dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He also serves as the Director of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity. He was previously the Chair of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department, and is an Adjunct Professor at IIT Delhi's School of IT. He is a Fellow of IEEE. He has published over 300 technical papers with an h-index of 95 and over 33000 citations (per Google scholar), been granted nine patents, and has obtained research support over $22M from National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), US Dept of Defense (DoD), NIST, IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin amongst others.
   Dr. Joshi obtained a B.Tech degree from IIT Delhi in 1989, and a Masters and Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1991 and 1993 respectively. His research interests are at the intersection of AI and Systems. He did some of the earliest work in data management and security for mobile and ad-hoc networks using AI approaches, which was cited in his selection as a Fellow of IEEE. Over the last decade, he has been exploring this intersection to improve Cybersecurity -- using Distributed AI approaches for attack detection and resilience in CPS/IoT systems, and policy driven approaches to security and privacy. This work has led not just to papers but technology transfer to small Maryland companies. He has also applied AI approaches to various facets of medicine. He has worked with scholars from areas as diverse as medicine, psychology, linguistics, gerontology, and public policy to explore AI based approaches in those domains that has led to publications and extramural funding. This collaboration is recognized by his appointment as affiliate faculty in the School of Medicine at UM Baltimore and in UMBC’s School of Aging. He has active international collaborations with colleagues in Japan, India and Europe. As Chair and Dean, Dr. Joshi has worked to create innovative programs (Data Science, AI, Minor in Computing for non STEM majors) at UMBC, and overseen growth and increased diversity in the student body and faculty, and worked with external stakeholders and the legislature to raise support for the growth of Engineering and Computing at UMBC.

4. Kamaljeet Sanghera

   George Mason University

   As the Executive Director of Global Engagements and Tech Talent Development at the College of Engineering and Computing at George Mason University, Dr. Kammy Sanghera leads global initiatives focused on fostering international partnerships and enhancing student engagement and professional development. Previously, Dr. Sanghera served as the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA), where she played a key role in advancing cutting-edge research that shapes the future of our digital society. Her work emphasized promoting equality, well-being, security, and prosperity. As a central liaison, Dr. Sanghera united Mason’s IDIA researchers with the broader community to foster collaboration and innovation. Dr. Sanghera’s leadership also includes her prior role as Executive Director of STEM Outreach for the Volgenau School of Engineering and as Associate Chair of the Information Sciences and Technology Department. A founding member of Virginia’s Governor’s STEM Commission, she has been an active contributor to the STEM community, serving on
   the Executive Board of the Northern Virginia Computer Science Teachers' Association and the Advisory Board of STEM for Her. Recognized for her advocacy of women in technology, Dr. Sanghera received the NCWIT Extension Services Award for her efforts to implement systemic changes that increase enrollment, retention, and graduation of women in technology and engineering programs. She has also made significant contributions to the Go Virginia Tech Talent Pipeline initiative, working alongside Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), Fairfax County Government, the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Dr. Sanghera is a dedicated member of the Students and Technology in Academia, Research, and Service (STARS) program and the National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT). Her ongoing efforts continue to shape the landscape of STEM education and technology development.