Engineering Education Blog: Three Gorges Dam begins construction
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 (122) · November 8th, 2007 · Add a Comment
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Today in History - November 8, 1997 - the main channel of the Yangtze River in China began to be blocked in preparation for the world’s largest hydroelectric power project. The Three Gorges Dam project in the People’s Republic of China is extremely controversial along several dimensions. The project was developed with the objective of controling flooding, providing hydroelectric power, and increasing trade and economic development within China – but the costs and benefits are far from being clear as scores of people and villages will be displaced and silting considerations and geological weakening could result in catastrophic disasters. Environmentalists are concerned that the dam is endangering several species near extinction, most notable the white-flag dolphin, which is listed as one of the 12 most endangered species in the world. Although locals have reported spotting the dolphin, a team of 25 scientists from six countries failed to find any white flag dolphins during a 38-day search last year. Thus it could very well be extinct today. If so, it would be the first cretacean of historical record to be driven to extinction by human activily, as the dolphin has no other natural enemies. This project provides an interesting case in cost-benefit analysis and engineering ethics in a country without full public debate.
See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on dam design and construction. or visit the Civil Engineering Education or the Environmental Engineering Education community sites.
Also on this day in history, Wilhelm Rontgen discovered x-rays in 1895. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 based on this discovery.
Tags: Civil Engineering · Computer Engineering · Earth Sciences · Environmental Engineering · Geological Engineering · Industrial Engineering · Life Sciences · Materials Engineering
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