CREATIVITY CONVERGENCE&
SUPPORTING BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
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Our recently completed strategic plan elevates our commitment to create societal engineers. We will create a New Kind of Engineer at all levels, one able to synthesize across disciplines and accelerate creative solutions to complex and critical societal challenges. We will break down barriers and resource our faculty and students to conduct high-impact research that is focused along convergent themes. We will become a place that embraces the concept that Great Minds Do Not Think Alike. We will become a college that is Engineered for Impact!
To make those plans a reality, we will need your help. My colleagues and I thank you for your interest and support.
Ken Lutchen Dean, College of Engineering
Dear Friends of the College of Engineering,
I am pleased to provide this introduction to our case for support of the college as we commit to a new strategic plan.
BIG CHALLENGES
• Creativity has long been at the heart of the engineer’s toolkit. Engineers see things as they are and ask why they can’t be better—and then call on their special skills to make them better. But the creativity that will be most needed from tomorrow’s engineers will be different. It will depend on the merging of skills from a wide range of traditional engineering disciplines, as well as adjacent professions.
BIG CHALLENGES
Yes, the challenges faced by society today are enormous.
With these advantages, we will succeed. And we invite you to join us.
But BU’s College of Engineering is ready and eager to respond. Toward that end, we have developed a bold new strategic plan, centered on two powerful tools: creativity and convergence
and to bring our creativity to bear within it. The challenge? How to accomplish this at scale, in sustainable ways, and across all dimensions of our academic and research missions.
Boston University College of Engineering4
Convergence is not a new goal, but it’s a hard one to achieve. For the better part of a decade, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have been calling for a more effective merging of disciplines to address complex problems. They’ve been advocating for shared languages, common concepts and metrics, and agreement on goals—all in the name of convergence. And they’ve made the case that convergence requires an open and inclusive culture. We agree. And we are determined to foster that kind of convergent culture—open and inclusive—
• Convergence is a distinctive approach to problem-solving that transcends disciplines. It integrates and abstracts knowledge, tools, and ways of thinking from a range of disciplines, in and outside of engineering. When convergence happens, acceleration results. The pathway to creative, robust, and high-impact solutions can be shortened dramatically.
We start with real advantages. One is our longstanding commitment to educating the Societal Engineer: a commitment that shapes all aspects of our teaching and research. Another is our relatively simple—and nimble—organizational structure. Still another is our role within a major research university with proven strengths in the physical, biological, computational, and social sciences. And a final advantage is the growing base of alumni and other friends of the college, including our partners in industry, who are determined to help us succeed.
Boston University College of Engineering6
My laboratory focuses on point-of-care (POC) testing and monitoring, which helps drive down costs, enables informed treatment decisions, and empowers patients to seek care earlier. We address challenging questions, starting with how POC tests can be integrated into the current healthcare landscape. How can we increase access so that more people will benefit from new treatments and medicines? How can we improve healthcare delivery to impact the most patients? What actions can we take in early development to ensure that these new technologies don’t worsen health disparities?
What are society’s challenges—and how can they be tackled by bringing together creativity and HealthcareLet’sconvergence?lookatjustfour.
CHALLENGES . . . AND RESPONSES
So let’s use creativity and convergence to make healthcare both better and cheaper: through minimally invasive therapies and early diagnostics; cells designed to detect or treat antibiotic resistance; implantable biological sensors; super-high-resolution imaging for detecting cancer and infectious diseases; design and control of personalized immune cells to cure cancer and other diseases; nanosensors for personalized digital medicine, including telemedicine for preliminary screenings and remote monitoring; and much, much more.
Poor nations suffer from inadequate healthcare. In rich nations, meanwhile, healthcare systems are expensive and inequitable. Worldwide, we see the emergence of new pathogens and drug-resistant bacteria. We see faulty distribution and poor supply-chain management of therapies. We see ineffective, inefficient delivery systems that are subject to data breaches and other privacy challenges.
Catherine Klapperich—professor of biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering—is passionate about developing technologies that improve healthcare for vulnerable populations, especially women, in low-resource areas.
Threats to the environment. This comprises a whole host of problems that pose risks to human society, to the natural world, and even to the planet. Climate change—as evidenced by shrinking glaciers, rising sea levels, and intensifying storms, fires, and droughts; energy depletion and lack of sustainability; unchecked urbanization and failing infrastructure; pollution of the land and oceans; deforestation; extinction of species. It’s a sobering list.
That last point is key. We try to make sure that the people who are the main users of a technology are consulted in the design phase of that technology. Why? Because diverse teams can save lives.
CHALLENGES . . . AND RESPONSES
HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE VULNERABLE
Yes, it’s daunting, but let’s be undaunted. Let’s combine creativity and convergence to invent new approaches to green and securely distributed energy generation; new ways to achieve carbon
CHALLENGES . . . AND RESPONSES
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY THAT TAKES ON REAL CHALLENGES
Declining urban function and resilience. As human populations grow, they tend to cluster around urban environments, thanks to the concentration of job opportunities and culture that cities offer. But going forward, these growing urban centers will face extraordinary challenges, ranging from the day-to-day (such as parking, traffic control, noise abatement, and retail supply management) to the infrastructural (mass transportation, energy delivery and use, and healthcare delivery, for example) to the existential (including crime control, preparing for weather and health emergencies, and reducing terrorist threats), and so many more.
I am excited about synthetic biology’s potential to help us gain a deeper understanding of the most complex aspects of human biology and disease— to paraphrase Feynman’s famous quote, “If we cannot build it, then we do not fully understand it”—as well as to serve as an engine for driving the revolutionary advances in medicine that will be key to combating today’s and future diseases, including neurodegenerative and agerelated disorders.
Professor Ahmad “Mo” Khalil and his group are developing synthetic biology approaches to study the molecular circuits that allow cells to control complex behaviors, such as processing signals, remembering information, and communicating with one another. As they better understand the “design rules” of these cellular circuits, they have become interested in translating their discoveries into new therapeutic modalities, such as programmable gene and cellular therapies, to address the most pressing human diseases.
Again, let’s draw on our creativity and the power of convergence to fight back, and win. Let’s invent smart assistive and prosthetic devices; new approaches to brain stimulation for chronic pain, neurodegenerative disorders, and mental health; neurophotonics and optogenetics for understanding memory and behavior; closedloop neuromodulation to modulate and enhance cognition; and improved diagnostics and therapies through artificial intelligence and other new tools.
So let’s search out new approaches to getting into and out of our increasingly crowded cities, including smart grids and transportation systems. Let’s develop sustainable energy
7 mitigation; and new materials driven by nature that are strong, tough, and environmentally friendly. Let’s find solutions that are affordable, equitable, accessible, and environmentally sustainable.
An aging population. As a society, we face new and mounting challenges from neurodegenerative diseases. For example, six million Americans today are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and another million with Parkinson’s. And because populations worldwide are growing and aging—and the prevalence of major disabling neurological disorders steeply increases with age—society will face an ever-growing demand for treatment, rehabilitation, and support services for people with neurological disorders.
generation and storage systems, including electrochemical devices, to lessen the impact of dense urban areas on the planetary environment. Let’s develop new sound-silencing materials. Let’s invent the algorithms that will help us enhance security at ports of entry without invading privacy. Let’s find ways to draw on climate science to protect the critical and imperiled resource that our coastal cities represent.
CHALLENGES . . . AND RESPONSES
THE STUFF OF NOISE ABATEMENT
Zhang: I’ve been working on metamaterials for more than a decade. But it was Reza who gradually got me more excited about the fundamental idea of a marriage between acoustics and metamaterials. If you ask me and my colleagues, acoustic metamaterials is a relatively young direction…but it’s the future.
Professors Xin Zhang (purple shirt) and Reza Ghaffarivardavagh (front) with MED researcher Stephan Anderson (left) and ENG student researcher Jacob Nikolajczyk (ENG’18) (right) are pioneers in creating synthetic, sound-silencing structures— acoustic metamaterials—that can block up to 94 percent of sounds. Zhang, the 2018 winner of BU’s Innovator of the Year award, and Ghaffarivardavagh draw heavily on their shared passion for mathematics to help design new metamaterials.
And with your help, some of them will come from us.
Ghaffarivardavagh: I’ve always been interested in acoustics. I like to work on something where I can hear or see the result—something that I can have an impact on and that addresses the kinds of issues we are facing nowadays.
Where will these new ideas, tools, and solutions come from? They will come from new approaches that engage all engineering disciplines, other professional fields, public policy, community leadership, economic modeling, and management.
• Our students
• Our faculty as teachers
For example, they are skilled communicators. They embrace systems-level thinking. They are globally aware. They have an understanding of, and a passion for, the innovative and entrepreneurial processes that begin with product design and continue through product deployment. They thrive when working on diverse teams. They are keenly aware of how public policies impact technology innovation and advancement. And finally, they appreciate how engineering breakthroughs can advance our quality of life, while also creating jobs and economic opportunity.
WHY US?
How are we qualified to take on society’s biggest and most intractable challenges? We can point to six compelling reasons:
• Our expert partners
• Our faculty as researchers
What does this mean? It means that our graduates not only have the powerful quantitative and creative problem-solving skills shared by all engineering professionals; they also have additional critical skills and attributes necessary for lifelong learning and impact for any career path they choose to follow.
WHY US?
• Our agile structures: intellectual and administrative
OUR MISSION
• Our mission
Our mission is to create the Societal Engineer.
In practice, the Societal Engineer inspires people from many backgrounds to work together to help create a safer, greener, more sustainable, healthier, better-connected, more energy-efficient and productive world—with food, drinkable water, and economic opportunity for all.
Of course, it’s hard to generalize about our 1,700 undergraduates, 500 master’s students, and 450 doctoral candidates. But as a rule, our students are smart, passionate, creative, and idealistic. They arrive at BU full of talent and purpose, and leave
OUR STUDENTS
Computer engineering grad student Santiago Gomez (CAS’14, ENG’22), top left, was upset to find his textbook in Professor Roscoe Giles’s Logic Design course referring to the combination of two circuits as a “master/ slave” relationship. He wrote a letter to publisher Pearson asking that the terminology be changed. In response, Pearson stopped distributing the text while revisions were made, agreed to replace the term throughout its catalog, and began contacting standards bodies to effect broader changes.
Our students push us during their time at BU. (We encourage that.) And when they go on to join the ranks of professionals, they push the limits of their fields.
Boston University College of Engineering10
Gomez: Actually, the engineering content of the book was very good. But as a Latinx student of computing engineering, I didn’t want to see racist terms disrupting the learning experience. When we see steps that we can take toward dismantling systemic racism within engineering, we have to take those steps.
Our students understand and embrace this mission. In fact, many choose the college over other top-ranked schools because they want the kind of broad-gauge, mission-driven education that we offer.
• Every year, our selectivity increases.
• In a recent and typical year, 95 percent of our graduating seniors were employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation.
CHALLENGING THE LANGUAGE
Giles: I was struck by the sincerity and energy of a student coming to this issue for the first time, and at the time we are in, where a large fraction of the country is ready to address racism. And I thought, This language can finally be changed.
equipped to lead. Here are two data points on the undergraduate level:
WHY US?
OUR FACULTY AS TEACHERS
Within the past decade, our faculty has designed and implemented the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC), the Bioengineering Technology & Entrepreneurship Center (BTEC), and the Binoy K. Singh Imagineering Laboratory
Toward that end, they are committed to curricular innovation, most recently including the development of a Master of Science in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (2020) and a unique Bachelor’s Concentration in Machine Learning (2021). And they complement classroom instruction with practical learning in the college’s extraordinary hands-on facilities.
All three of these innovative teaching resources immerse our students in hands-on design and development of products and services—and in the long run, build their confidence and ambition as they set out to pursue and implement innovative ideas. In May 2022 we won a grant from the Innovation Institute at the MassTech Collaborative to build an $8.8 million Robotics and Autonomous Systems Teaching and Innovation Center (RASTIC) right next to EPIC. And through all of these resources we form deep partnerships with companies large and small, whose equipment we use and whose staff mentor our students. Those in industry understand that partnering with us to support students and spaces is one of the best ways to create the future workforce they need.
WHY US?
It’s equally hard to generalize about our faculty, which currently includes some 150 members in all. But it’s safe to say that, across the board, they are dedicated teachers. They are committed to preparing all of our students for success in the digital, data-driven world.
Our willingness and ability to tackle the big issues is one reason why our R&D expenditures are competitive with the most highly ranked engineering peer schools. In a recent year, we ranked 10th among peers in research expenditures per faculty member, 5th among peers in average annual National Science Foundation grants, and 7th among peers in average annual National Institutes of Health grants.
Two decades ago, Professor Ed Damiano began work on a portable, wearable device that would help people suffering from type 1 diabetes manage their illness—and enjoy a quality of life that most of us take for granted. Damiano’s “Bionic Pancreas”—more recently dubbed the “iLet”—mimics the functions of the human pancreas, monitoring and regulating blood sugar levels. In 2019, Damiano’s company, Beta Bionics, received FDA approval for the iLet and raised $126 million to finish its development and bring it to market.
BEATING DIABETES
Boston University College of Engineering12 WHY US?
They are therefore well positioned to bring creativity and convergence to bear on major research themes that benefit society: synthetic biology and tissue engineering, to fight cancer and other diseases; neuroscience and neuroengineering, to help understand and treat degenerative brain diseases; intelligent, autonomous, and secure systems, to improve urban function; materials by design; photonics and optical systems, to speed up data transmission; and energy and sustainability, to advance clean, efficient, and climate-friendly forms of energy.
It became clear to us that the best way to ensure that the bionic pancreas would be available to as many people as possible was to build a corporate structure that was as innovative as the technology itself. As a Massachusetts public benefit corporation, Beta Bionics is empowered to place the interests of the type 1 diabetes community ahead of all other considerations in carrying out its corporate mission. Beta Bionics was born out of this commitment, and out of the principle that such a commitment would naturally lead to the best and most desirable technology for people with diabetes. It was a theme that resonated with our investors. We were delighted by their progressiveness, and their eagerness to embrace and share this core value with us.
When it comes to research, our faculty are creative collaborators, drawn to working with colleagues within the college and across the larger University.
OUR FACULTY RESEARCHERSAS
And finally, we work closely with our alumni, who not only support us financially, but also provide experiential learning opportunities in the Boston area and farther afield, and sometimes join us in the classroom.
Yannis Paschalidis—professor of biomedical, systems, electrical and computer engineering, and computing and data sciences—has a vision for self-driving vehicles that would launch them from the mundane world of suburban commuting to the most dynamic (and sometimes harsh) places around the globe. In 2019, the Department of Defense awarded $7.5 million for Paschalidis to team up with other scientists from Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Australian research universities to pursue this vision.
A TEAM ON TWO CONTINENTS
Our team spans two continents and brings together some of the preeminent experts in neuroscience—focusing on localization, mapping, and navigation functions—with experts in robotics, computer vision, control systems, and algorithms. We’re leveraging insights from neuroscience to better control engineered systems and endow them with enhanced autonomy. We don’t expect to “crack the code” that animals and humans use to navigate. Instead, we collect data from animal and human experiments and use the data to infer detailed control policies for autonomous vehicles.
OUR AGILE ADMINISTRATIVEINTELLECTUALSTRUCTURES:AND
OUR EXPERT PARTNERS
Most engineering schools are built around a rigid structure, comprising numerous and mostly independent departments, with 90 percent of the top 20 engineering schools at private institutions maintaining between 5 and 14 departments.
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By contrast, the college has just three departments (electrical, mechanical, and biomedical engineering) and two interdisciplinary divisions (materials science and systems engineering). This means that we are better equipped to cross
WHY US?
We have built strong partnerships with key players from industry, and—through our recently established Office of Industry Engagement—are now building on that foundation. In a recent survey, 80 percent of our faculty expressed an interest in working with relevant industry partners, whether in an applied-research setting or on rapid curricular innovation for future workforce needs. In our outreach, we place a special emphasis on engagement with the City of Boston—its people and places, its challenges and opportunities.
We do our research—and in some cases our teaching—in collaboration with a wide range of expert partners. Many of them are found at BU, in the School of Medicine, the College of Arts & Sciences, and other relevant faculties. We work with them in state-of-the-art shared facilities—such as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) and the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering—and on major interdisciplinary studies like the Framingham Heart Study.
discipline boundaries—in part because there are fewer boundaries to begin with. And on a more fundamental level, our researchers are strongly supported in their efforts to find approaches that merge or transcend disciplines. In this context, convergence comes naturally.
WHY US?
our industry partners, which focus on technology transfer, industry-sponsored research, and opportunities for experiential learning—both on and off Wecampus.arecreating
a distinctive culture, in which great minds do not think alike. We are shaping a College of Engineering that will thrive based on its diversity of expertise, individuality, and creative thought—all of which converge in powerful solutions.
For all of these reasons and more, we believe we are positioned to act upon our convergence vision— and use it to tackle society’s biggest and most intractable challenges.
The focus of our recently revised strategic plan is creating a college that is engineered for impact. This grows out of our mission to educate Societal Engineers and reflects our commitment to combining creativity and convergence. Our college will create graduates who are wired for a new world—in other words, who are adept at using creativity and convergence to accelerate robust, implementable solutions to complex problems. This commitment also guides our relationships with
• neuroscience and neuroengineering
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How will we get there? One answer lies in building clusters of exceptional research faculty focused on these themes. Going forward, approximately a third of the school’s faculty searches will be aimed at finding researchers with a demonstrated interest in one or more of them. We anticipate that the resulting clusters will be well positioned to identify propellants for targeted research, and will strengthen and multiply our already productive industry relationships.
And there’s one more critical component of our convergence vision: creating a culture of impactful inclusion. This is not simply a societal nice-to-have. Our students need to understand that the most successful and impactful product designs reflect the power of inclusion—and our undergraduate, graduate, and corporate programs need to embody that principle. Our graduates have to enter the world of work committed to creating a more diverse workforce, and a more inclusive workplace.
• photonics and optical systems
• materials by design
• energy and sustainability
At the graduate level, it will require the continuing development of unique programs at the dynamic intersection of emerging and convergent disciplines—most likely driven and informed by the faculty clusters described above.
• synthetic biology and tissue engineering
To be achievable, a vision needs focus. When we survey the almost unlimited landscape of convergence, we see six areas in which we can make a real contribution:
That’s both the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do.
Another answer lies in creating new undergraduate courses, experiences, internships, and concentra tions around convergent themes. This will include continued growth in entrepreneurship-related courses, in collaboration with our faculty colleagues at BU’s business, law, and medical schools, among
OUR CONVERGENCE VISIONOURCONVERGENCE
• intelligent, autonomous, and secure systems
others. It also will include a dynamic set of upper-level elective courses focused on convergent approach es—for example, medical robotics—that will change periodically to reflect new trends at the forefront of engineering and society. We also anticipate includ ing a capstone course that will expand on today’s undergraduate Senior Design Project by integrating several disciplines outside engineering, with guid ance from cross-disciplinary advisors.
VISION
INVESTMENTS IN OUR FACULTY
We believe that our collaborative culture and convergent strengths can help us recruit and retain top faculty. But that will also require resources— and specifically, endowed professorships. Such endowments are truly wise investments, in terms of research dollars going forward. For example: Three of our recent faculty recruits with a focus on one or more convergent themes have collectively generated more than $35 million in research grants since 2017.
We also seek to enhance our ability to recruit and retain outstanding young researchers. We’ll achieve this by offering them Career Development Professorships, which give them the extra time and resources needed to conduct promising early-stage,
Our convergence vision argues for investments in two groups: our faculty, and our students. In some cases—for example, in terms of infrastructure like laboratories and specialized teaching spaces—the needs of those groups overlap. But in terms of giving opportunities, we can consider them separately.
high-risk, and potentially high-impact research programs. We seek a total of 6 such professorships. We also seek to elevate our research Seed Grant Program enough to support two grants annually of between $200,000 and $400,000 apiece.
We seek to create 10 endowed professorships aimed at recruiting new faculty, and an additional 5 for retaining our existing “stars.”
THE RESOURCES WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD
Of course, the faculty pipeline starts earlier. We need to help promising young people enter and succeed in our doctoral programs. Toward that end, we seek funds to support 22 PhD fellowships, with a priority placed on convergent-themed research areas. We also seek to create as many as a dozen awards of varying sizes to inspire convergent and translatable scholarship.
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THE RESOURCES WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD
At every faculty level—from the most senior to the newest recruit—we need to reinforce a culture of inclusion. This will require, for example, funds for faculty onboarding and faculty mentorship. It will require funds dedicated to bringing in faculty and PhD students from underrepresented groups. This is critically important to helping all of our students understand and embrace the power of inclusion.
Most of the unrestricted and annual gifts that we receive go directly to supporting our students and faculty. There are two existing vehicles for making such gifts. The first is the College of Engineering Annual Fund, which supports— for example—student clubs, housing stipends and salary support, engineering book awards, and design and innovation competitions in our Singh Imagineering Laboratory. The other is our Societal Engineer Fund, designed to deepen and broaden this core strand of the educational experience at the college. The Societal Engineer Fund supports—for example— our Technology Innovation Scholars Program, which sends some of our most talented undergraduates to middle schools and high schools across the country to explain how engineering can transform lives.
19 PAYING IT FORWARD
The same principle applies when it comes to creating scholarships, especially for our undergraduate students. We need to ensure that we have the resources we need to keep the college accessible to the broadest possible range of qualified students.
Vanessa Feliberti (ENG’93) was in middle school in El Paso, Texas, when she heard a high schooler say that “computers were the future.” At that moment, she says, she knew that was the future for her. Now, having enjoyed a high-powered career at Microsoft, she’s passionate about making sure that others like her can follow a similarly rewarding path—in part by making a major gift to support TISP.
In the same spirit, we seek to provide Distinguished Summer Research Fellowships, to ensure that students who want to pursue research over the summer aren’t prevented from doing so out of financial concerns.
As a lead inside Microsoft, I am the first woman of many things, like the first Latina engineer on the Microsoft campus, and the first female engineering partner. So I feel fortunate to be able to help open the doors for inclusion in our society. TISP’s focus on combining deep technical skills with truly challenging students to think about having a positive effect on society really resonates with me, because that is what my life and career are about.
Our cutting-edge facilities allow us to elevate design throughout our curriculum. This requires establishing a Student Design Projects Endowed Fund, which will provide resources for students working in our hands-on facilities for product design and open innovation. In some cases, students need access to special equipment or software that can’t be covered by our operating budget. We must also create a dedicated Student Design Space within which students can build and innovate continuously in a place that can sustain their prototypes and ideas over time.
THE RESOURCES WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD
INVESTMENTS IN OUR STUDENTS
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
We have prepared additional materials describing these and other giving opportunities, and about the industry partnerships that provide vital support for our research and teaching. We are happy to provide these materials upon request—and of course to respond to your creative ideas about supporting the College of Engineering.
THE RESOURCES WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD
College of Engineering have good reason to be confident as well. A recent poll of our faculty revealed that 76 percent of our colleagues rate our current level of collaboration across
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We approach this goal with both humility and Whyconfidence.humility?Because,
departmental lines as either “strong” or “very strong.” Almost four out of five endorse our strategy of prioritizing investments in convergent themes—both as a way of doing important work, and as a way to further distinguish the Societycollege.will
always need its deep specialists—in engineering, as in other disciplines. But the era of relying only on freestanding, single-disciplinebased engineers is over. Today, and going forward, we need to bring multiple perspectives to bear on the very real challenges, and opportunities, that lie before us.
GETTING TO SOLUTIONS
GETTING TO SOLUTIONS
Great minds do not all think alike. And that’s why, as we set out to solve major societal challenges, we need to combine creativity and convergence.
as noted, this is hard work. The usual and comfortable rules of the road don’t apply. Success, when it comes, may come from unexpected directions. Often, it’s best seen in Buthindsight.weatthe
That’s the hard work, and the rewarding work.
We invite you to join us in this exciting mission.
BU.EDU/ENG
Boston University College of Engineering24
For further information, please contact: Kenneth R. Lutchen Dean, Boston University College of Engineering 44 Cummington Street Boston, MA klutch@bu.edu617-353-280002215