National Building Museum Keynote Speaker

Dr. Henry Petroski, Forensic Engineering Award for 2008

The 2008 National Forensic Engineering Award will be presented to Henry Petroski, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE. Dr. Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. He has also taught at the University of Illinois and at the University of Texas at Austin. His undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering from Manhattan College (1963), and his graduate degrees are in theoretical and applied mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1964 and 1968).

In 1975 Dr. Petroski joined the staff of Argonne National Laboratory to start up and head a new group in fracture mechanics for the Reactor Analysis and Safety Division. Although the focus of his work at Argonne was on problems relating to the development of liquid-metal fast breeder reactors, while at the laboratory he developed a broad interest in failure analysis and began to write about issues in technology and society for such publications as MIT’s Technology Review and the New York Times. He moved to Duke University in 1980 in order to be able to devote more time to writing longer articles and books on engineering and design.

Dr. Petroski is now a well-known author of influential books on the nature of engineering, and in particular on why some engineering designs fail. To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design was published in 1985. The book was developed into a BBC television documentary, which Dr. Petroski wrote and presented, that was first broadcast in 1987. Dr. Petroski has continued to write and lecture on the topics of success and failure, drawing upon historic and contemporary case studies to illustrate his thesis about the central role of failure in the engineering design process. Contributions include:

• The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance (1990)
• The Evolution of Useful Things (1992)
• Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994)
• Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America (1995)
• Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing (1996)
• The Book on the Bookshelf (1999)
• Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer (2002)
• Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design (2003)
• Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design (2006)
• The Toothpick: Technology and Culture (2007)

Since 1991 Dr. Petroski has been writing the “Engineering” column in American Scientist, the magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Selections of these columns, which range across the spectrum from success to failure of designed objects and systems of all kinds, have been collected in the books Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering (1997) and Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering (2004). He also writes the “Refractions” column in ASEE Prism, the magazine of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Dr. Petroski is a professional engineer licensed in Texas and a chartered engineer registered in Ireland. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center. He has appeared often on radio and television--including NPR, PBS, and commercial networks such as CBS, CNN, and CNBC--discussing matters of design, history, and engineering, including their relationship to current events. His opinion pieces have appeared on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers and magazines.

Dr. Petroski’s books have been translated into about a dozen languages, and he has lectured around the world on the ideas about which he writes. His books, articles, and lectures have earned Dr. Petroski a broad range of recognition, including four honorary degrees. Among his other honors are the Washington Award from the Western Society of Engineers, the Ralph Coats Roe Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the History and Heritage Award from the ASCE.

Dr. Petroski is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Engineers of Ireland. He has been elected a Distinguished Member of the ASCE and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Engineering. He is a member of the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, and has been invited to present the Keynote Lecture at the Fifth Forensic Engineering Congress to be held in Washington, DC, November 11-14, 2009.