Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: The Wright Brothers and Sister
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (333) · December 17th, 2007 · 2 Comments
Today in History – December 17, 1903 – Orville and Wilbur Wright completed the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers developed more capable airplanes and grabbed the world’s attention in their European and American flights in 1908.
December 17, 2003 marked 100 years of flight, starting with the first successful Kitty Hawk flight. The Wright brothers were in the spotlight, while their sister, Katharine Wright, remained in shadow. Katharine, a teacher who graduated from Oberlin College, was the only one of the three to graduate from college and is reported to have scored very high in algebra exams in high school. She is credited with being the Wright brothers’ business manager and publicist. Perhaps she was one of the first teachers to bring aviation ideas into the classroom?
Aviation, and more recently space travel, continues to inspire awe and inspire. The National Academy of Engineering places the invention of the airplane as one of the top modern mileposts: Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Women were there from the beginning; discover the 100 most influential women in aviation and aerospace on this timeline.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on “100 Years of Flight“, as well as on aviation and aeronautic engineering. For related curricula, visit the Aeronautical Engineering Education community.
Tags: Broadening Participation · General Engineering, Engineering Science
2 responses so far ↓
1 » Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Wright brothers airplane patent » NSDL Pathways News // May 21, 2008 at 9:01 pm
[...] earlier, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers [...]
2 Engineering Education "Today in History" Blog: Wright brothers airplane patent // May 22, 2008 at 12:53 am
[...] earlier, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers [...]
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