Engineering 50 Years from Today: A Purdue Engineering Community Perspective

Since opening its doors in 1874, Purdue University’s College of Engineering and its graduates have been at the forefront of technological breakthroughs and are now poised to lead the next generation of engineers in the United States and around the globe. Featuring more than twenty-five essays from former Boilermakers, Engineering 50 Years From Today both celebrates the program’s 150th anniversary and looks ahead, exploring what the field of engineering might look like half a century from now. Leading luminaries from Purdue’s engineering community, including prominent university professors as well as innovators working in the private sector, reveal how technologies related to everything from biotech and nanotechnology to space exploration and AI could be harnessed to create a more sustainable and equitable future for all. The book also features brief essays from elementary school students who foresee a world in which engineering solves issues such as climate change, enables deep-space travel, and even cures certain human diseases. These young voices, along with those of successful Purdue alumni, offer a fascinating glimpse into the potential technological, social, cultural, and political challenges of the twenty-first century and what tools engineers might use to address them.