Two Illinois Faculty Selected for Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

Two College of Engineering faculty members--William P. King and Huimin Zhao--have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) 15th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. Engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together for the 2 1/2-day event.

"In today’s challenging economic times, we look more than ever toward our engineering innovators," said NAE President Charles M. Vest. "The U.S. Frontiers of Engineering program brings together a diverse group of this country's most promising young engineers, and gives them a forum to discuss multi-disciplinary ways of addressing the issues that will carry us into tomorrow's economy."
 

King is the Kritzer Faculty Scholar and an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering. His research group develops thermal processing tools that are used for manufacturing, metrology and materials analysis at the micrometer and nanometer scales. These tools and techniques make high-volume production of nanotechnology-based products economically feasible.
 

Zhao is the Centennial Endowed Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Research in the Zhao group is focused on protein engineering and metabolic engineering. The overall research theme is to use directed evolution in combination with rational design to create proteins, receptors, biosynthetic pathways, and whole cells with improved or novel functions, followed by detailed biochemical and biophysical characterizations.
 
The Frontiers of Engineering symposium will be held Sept. 10-12 at the National Academies' Beckman Center at the University of California, Irvine, and will examine engineering tools for scientific discovery; engineering the health care delivery system; nano/micro photonics and new applications; and resilient and sustainable infrastructures. A featured speaker will be Bradford W. Parkinson, Edward C. Wells Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Emeritus at Stanford University. Parkinson is credited with being the father of the Global Positioning System and is a recipient of the prestigious Draper Prize and a member of the NAE.
 
The participants--from industry, academia, and government--were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from approximately 240 applicants. Sponsors for the 2009 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering are The Grainger Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, U.S. Department of Defense (DDR&E-Research), the National Science Foundation, Microsoft Research, and Cummins Inc.
 
A meeting program and more information about Frontiers of Engineering are available at www.nae.edu/frontiers.
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