This grant provides funds to organize the 2011 Technical Conference for the Society of Engineering Science (SES). The conference will take place on October 12-14, 2011 at the Norris Center at Northwestern University. The SES conference facilitates the free exchange of information on all aspects of engineering science and provides a forum for discussion, education, and recognition of the talents of the engineering science community. The SES conference promotes the development and strengthening of the interfaces between various disciplines in engineering, sciences, and mathematics.
Consistent with the SES mission, the 2011 SES Technical Conference will actively seek the participation of groups underrepresented in science and engineering (e.g., underrepresented minorities, women, and persons with disabilities). This will be achieved by (1) targeting historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) around the country, (2) encouraging faculty members to identify promising undergraduate students with an interest in pursuing graduate studies and (3) providing travel assistance to undergraduate and graduate students, particularly those of underrepresented minorities, women, and persons with disabilities. The funds requested are for this purpose.
The 48th Annual Technical Conference on Society of Engineering Sciences (SES) was held at Northwestern University on October 12 – 14, 2011. The conference was co-sponsored by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Program at Northwestern University. Funded in 1963, the Society of Engineering Science is to promote the free exchange of information on all aspects of engineering science and to provide a forum for discussion, education, and recognition of the talents of the engineering science community. The SES conferences are to promote the development and strengthening of the interfaces between various disciplines in engineering, sciences, and mathematics. The 48th SES conference has achieved these goals. More than 500 people around the world attended the three-day conference. More than 560 papers were presented covering a wide range of topics including Mechanics in Medicine, Fluid, Thermal and Energy, Micro and Nano Systems, Computational Multiscale Science and Engineering, and Mechanics of Materials and Structures. Many attendees considered the conference an extremely stimulating and valuable opportunity for scientists and engineers to come together for free exchange of information on all aspects of engineering science. Consistent with the SES mission, the 48th conference had taken measures to attract more student participation. As a result, more than 160 graduate students across the country attended the conference. Thanks to the financial support from the National Science Foundation, 25 of these graduate students, many of them are from under-represented groups, were supported financially to attend the conference.
