Creativity in Science and Engineering for the Built Environment: From Ancient Past, through the Present, and into the Future
Abstract
This lecture presents a historical perspective on the importance of imagination and creativity that are essential for successful design and execution of major built infrastructure projects throughout the world. Parallels to various science and technology disciplines are drawn, stressing their importance in engineering endeavors related to architecture, structural design, construction technologies and project management methods. Future developments in nanotechnologies, additive manufacturing, information technology, automation and advanced robotics for infrastructure design and construction engineering are elaborated.
About the speaker
Prof. Miroslaw Skibniewski received his MEng from Warsaw University of Technology in 1981, and MS and PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983 and 1986 respectively. He is also a graduate of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Management Development Program. Prior to his academic career, he worked in the industry as an engineer with the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory (which is later renamed to Professional Service Industries, Inc.). From 1986 to 2006, he was a faculty in the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. In 2005, he joined the University of Maryland and is currently the A. James Clark Endowed Chair Professor of Construction Engineering and Project Management.
Prof. Skibniewski specializes in e-commerce technology applications to engineering project management for construction and in construction automation. He developed one of the first construction automation programs in the United States and collaborated with major industrial and government organizations both in the United States and overseas. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors and is Past President of the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction. Since 1994, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of Automation in Construction, the North American Editor of the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, as well as a member of editorial boards of over twenty other peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
Among Prof. Skibniewski’s past honors are the US National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986, the American Society of Civil Engineers' Walter L. Huber Research Prize in 1998, and the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction Tucker-Hasegawa Research Award in 2007. He was elected as a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Engineering in 2006 and of the Academy of Engineering in Poland in 2013.
