John L. Anderson
President, National Academy of Engineering
This lecture honors the distinguished career of William R. Schowalter, whose accomplishments span seminal research in fluid mechanics, visionary academic leadership as department chair at Princeton and dean of engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and high-level international engagement as senior adviser to three presidents at the National University of Singapore and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
Reflecting Bill’s broad contributions to chemical engineering, the lecture’s focus will alternate on a yearly basis between fluid mechanics research, broadly understood to include complex fluids and soft condensed matter, and typically delivered by an academic speaker, and topics of general interest to our profession, the latter typically delivered by an industrial speaker.
The William R. Schowalter Lecture will be given by John L. Anderson, President, National Academy of Engineering.
From Particles to People and Complex Organizations
John L. Anderson, President, National Academy of Engineering
In 1989 Russel, Saville and Schowalter published the classic book about the dynamics of Brownian particles suspended in fluids. Bill Schowalter then turned his attention to the dynamics of people by becoming the dean of engineering at the University of Illinois. The jump from modeling inanimate objects to leading human beings is often treacherous, but Bill made it look seamless - which of course it is not. Others who followed him were fortunate to have his advice based on experience, not theory. In this presentation I will discuss leadership of technical organizations and posit that engineering-thinking is an asset. The discussion will also include thoughts on what differentiates engineering from science, and the role of diversity in guiding leaders to “do the right thing”.
Supported by the AIChE Foundation
