Guest Stefan Jaeger joins us to discuss the portrayal of engineers in literature and mass media.
If his work life were a procedural crime drama, Brian’s not sure whether he’d be portrayed as a hero or a villain.
Brian enjoyed the movies Real Genius and Sneakers for their representations of quasi-engineers.
Our guest, Stefan Jaeger, is Managing Director of Member and Corporate Communications for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Stefan has been working recently on a Raise the Bar initiative that seeks to require that engineers of the future obtain a masters’ degree, or an equivalent 30 credits, to be professionally licensed.
Our guest has also been working on Vision 2025, an effort to prepare the civil engineering profession for tomorrow’s world.
The ASCE has partnered with the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and the American Public Works Association (APWA) to create the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
The ASCE puts out a report card on America’s infrastructure status every four years.
In the 1990’s, Stefan heard a repeated refrain from engineers about the lack of an engineering-based TV series similar to the popular legal drama L.A. Law.
Our guest’s book recently received an S.E.T. award from the Entertainment Industries Council for “accurate and impactful entertainment portraying and promoting the fields of science, engineering, technology and math.”
The group discusses professional licensure, as well as the inevitable tension between engineering management and engineering design.
Stefan raises the possibility that the stereotype of a steady, grounded engineer doesn’t always mesh well with the glamorous, exciting characters that TV and movie audiences like to watch.
Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, tells the story of a unemployed defense engineer who goes on a violent rampage… not exactly a positive role model!
Arlington Road reveals the fictional terrorist activities of structural engineer Oliver Lang… again, not a very positive take on the engineering profession.
In the 2005 movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Brad Pitt plays an assassin whose cover is that of an engineer.
Jamie Foxx plays a career-minded attorney in Law Abiding Citizen. One of the attorney’s clients, Philadelphia engineer Clyde Shelton, feels that he has been treated unfairly by the legal system, and goes on a killing spree. Notice a trend here in movies about engineers?
A 1996 film, Ridicule, tells the story of a minor aristocrat and engineer who hopes to reduce sickness and death around mosquito-infested swamps by installing a drainage system in 18th century France. Finally, one for the good guys!
Jeff notes how engineers fail to see the value of their non-technical work, as we discussed with James Trevelyan in Episode 19, “Value.”
Stefan Jaeger can be reached by email: sjaeger ** at ** thejackhammerelegies ++ dot ++ com, or through a comment form at the bottom of the reviews page on his novel’s website.
Thanks to Stefan Jaeger for allowing us to use the cover of his award-winning book, “The Jackhammer Elegies” as the image for this episode. Podcast theme music provided by Paul Stevenson
Akira served as a committee member on the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS) report about the Fukushima accident in 2011. Our guest has commented elsewhere about his visit to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
Japan recently shut down all of its nuclear reactors.
Jeff and Akira discuss the perception of risk via cognitive maps, and the notion of “safety culture.” A cognitive risk map can be seen on page 10 of a presentation that Dr. Tokuhiro gave in 2011.
Yucca Mountain was at one time the designated location for depositing radioactive waste in the United States. However, the nation currently lacks a long term storage site for high-level radioactive waste.
Bill was a guest on The Engineering Commons podcast a little more than a year ago, in an episode titled STEM Education. In that interview, he told us about his work as a member of the Science Brothers.
Our guest got married during the past year, and managed to work a soldering iron into his wedding ceremony.
Bill and his fiancee, Mara, sent out wedding invitations that lit up (“twinkled”) and flashed a special message in Morse code.
A bit of EL wire and some LEDs allowed Bill’s suit and Mara’s dress to light up as well.
Mara and Bill also designed and built edge-lit acrylic centerpieces for the reception.
Bill works on submersible robots that search for mines in the ocean. The water’s attenuation of radio frequency (RF) signals requires these vehicles to be autonomous.
One of the vehicles Bill works on was used to search for the USS Alligator, the first submarine used by the US Navy.
A project that our guest recently worked on was the Modular Unmanned Surface Craft Littoral (MUSCL), a boat intended for surveillance and reconnaissance along rivers. In case you need to look it up, as your humble scribe did, a littoral zone is “the part of a sea, lake or river that is close to the shore.”
The SeaPerch program equips teachers and students with resources needed to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). Carmen got to build one of these vehicles as a high-school student.
Guest Stefan Jaeger joins us to discuss the portrayal of engineers in literature and mass media.
