Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century Addressing Grand Challenges (2019) / Chapter Skim
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The Ultimate Challenge for Environmental Engineering: Preparing the Field to Address a New Future
The Ultimate Challenge for Environmental Engineering: Preparing the Field to Address a New Future
Pages 78-89
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From page 78... ...
Environmental engineers should respond to the grand challenges outlined in this report and provide leadership to address them. To do so, the environmental engineering field must expand its scope, moving from a focus on individual problems toward systems-based solutions that address a broad set of issues.
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From page 79... ...
Environmental Engineering Practice Environmental engineers operate in many sectors -- private practice, industry, government, academia, and nonprofits -- and at many scales, from individual facilities to international organizations. Environmental engineers apply their craft to a wide range of areas and develop careers in a variety of employment structures.
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From page 80... ...
Environmental Engineering Education Although there are multiple models for educating and training environmental engineers, the 4-year undergraduate engineering program has traditionally served as the foundation for environmental engineering and is typically the minimum 80 | ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING IN THE 21st CENTURY: ADDRESSING GRAND CHALLENGES
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From page 81... ...
Educational institutions need to work with thought leaders from academic and practitioner communities and beyond to strengthen the education of tomorrow's environmental engineers, enhancing the curriculum and building essential skills. Enhancing the Curriculum To address society's environmental challenges, environmental engineers will need to have strength in their area of expertise but also have sufficient breadth to appreciate the broader societal context and devise effective solutions (Figure 6-2)
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From page 82... ...
, topics such as climate, air pollution, and energy are sparsely covered in most current university curricula, leading to knowledge gaps between what our education system provides and the challenges future environmental engineers will face. Furthermore, most current environmental engineering curricula lack sufficient training in data science, which is emerging as a key strategy in 21st century solutions.
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From page 83... ...
Approaches to Engineering Education Reform Solving the grand challenges in environmental engineering demands a broader approach to education. Interdisciplinary, experiential learning equips students to consider how myriad factors such as budget constraints, historical context, public acceptance, and regulatory frameworks affect the design and implementation of technological solutions to societal challenges.
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From page 84... ...
Several universities have instituted engineering leadership initiatives and developed educational models that broaden the undergraduate engineering experience.293 The National Academy of Engineering also has led several efforts to advance undergraduate engineering education through its work with the Engineer of 2020 Project294 and the Grand Challenge Scholars Program.295 These initiatives illustrate how existing engineering programs can be enhanced without necessarily adding new coursework. For example, the Grand Challenges Scholars program involves training on five basic components -- research/creative, multidisciplinary, business/entrepreneurship, multicultural, and social consciousness -- that can be layered upon or crafted within existing degree requirements.
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From page 85... ...
If greater emphasis is placed on graduate programs to educate the environmental engineers of the future, targeted programs may be needed to recruit underrepresented groups into environmental engineering graduate programs. College and university programs should evaluate their undergraduate and graduate degree requirements and other educational opportunities to ensure that environmental engineers can receive sufficient training to address the grand challenges.
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From page 86... ...
. Interdisciplinary research integrates information, perspectives, and techniques from multiple disciplines to address problems that cannot be fully addressed within a single discipline.298 Incentivizing Interdisciplinary Research Successful interdisciplinary collaboration requires a cultural transition to embrace new areas of expertise and new ways of thinking, reinforced by incentives that provide tangible rewards for interdisciplinary work from the scale of the individual 86 | ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING IN THE 21st CENTURY: ADDRESSING GRAND CHALLENGES
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From page 87... ...
To facilitate the collaboration necessary to meet future challenges, research employment structures should evolve to value and incentivize interdisciplinary work. Examples of actions that research institutions can take to incentivize interdisciplinary collaboration include the following: • Develop recruiting, promotion, and reward processes that reflect the interdisciplinary nature of environmental engineering, including valuing impact associated with coauthorship and publication in nontraditional interdisciplinary journals.301 • Enhance interdisciplinary mentoring to support the development and impact of early career scholars in nontraditional academic units and careers.
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From page 88... ...
Examples of steps that research agencies, organizations, and corporations can take to foster interdisciplinary collaboration include the following: • Craft opportunities for research support for early career scholars geared toward crosscutting and interdisciplinary themes. • Prioritize expansion of interdisciplinary research support, even at the expense of disciplinary support, and incorporate proposal evaluation techniques that reward research teams and proposals that ensure genuine collaboration among scholars.302 • Develop NSF Engineering Research Centers focused around grand challenges, as recommended in the 2017 National Academies report, A New Vision for Center Based Engineering Research.303 88 | ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING IN THE 21st CENTURY: ADDRESSING GRAND CHALLENGES
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From page 89... ...
Several programs provide opportunities for both basic and translational research engaging academics and industrial partners in teams that solve real-world problems, including the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program at the National Institutes of Health and NSF's Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaisons with Industry and Partnerships for Innovation programs. Examples of steps that research agencies, organizations, and corporations can take to enhance the translation of research to practice include the following: • Develop additional opportunities for translating interdisciplinary research into practice through collaborative partnerships between industry, academia, and communities.
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