2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Military involvement in humanitarian assistance roles is well established. Efforts have ranged from managing large scale operations such as the Berlin airlift in World War II to supporting homeland natural disaster relief efforts in concert with federal, state and local authorities during Hurricane Katrina and the Covid-19 pandemic to international involvement in disaster recovery such as Operation Tomodachi following the 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Honshu, Japan and Operation Unified Assistance following an earthquake and tsunami in the vicinity of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. These efforts highlight the continued presence and need for military personnel in humanitarian missions to save lives, establish effective partner relationships, and improve international relations. Students at military and civilian institutions who will commission as military officers can benefit from a further understanding of global, national, and local level policies and efforts to address humanitarian challenges and needs as these students will be at the forefront of facing these challenges around the world. Additionally, it is critical that a set of students understands the engineering challenges behind the humanitarian efforts that are undertaken. In order to increase the knowledge of students, a humanitarian engineering elective course was developed and implemented that incorporates the use of engineering principles to address humanitarian events and crises. Through a tiered approach that increases student knowledge of humanitarian and disaster relief doctrine and guidance, addresses fundamental engineering challenges facing many international communities, and provides students with a technical understanding of disaster relief structures through the use of engineering programs like STAAD (Structural Analysis And Design), an effective course has been developed for future military officers. This paper details the course outcomes, structure and content and provides recommendations and guidance for implementing a humanitarian engineering course for future military officers.