Dr. Charles Proteus Steinmetz Memorial Lecture Series
Dr. Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1865-1923) is one of the greatest contributors to the growth of the electrical industry in the United States. As a former national president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and as a distinguished engineer who performed his work in Schenectady New York, it is fitting that the Schenectady Section of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers should commemorate him.
Dr. Steinmetz came to the United States in 1890, completely unknown and impoverished, and in a span of 33 years became world renowned for his contributions to the electrical industry. Engineers will remember him best for his investigations in the fields of machine design, lighting, and the symbolic method of alternating current calculations.
Dr. Steinmetz's many friends and admirers created the Steinmetz Memorial Lecture Endowment Fund in 1925. Since then, more than sixty eminent scientists and engineers have presented public lectures on the Union College campus in Schenectady, New York in honor of Charles Proteus Steinmetz.
Steinmetz Memorial Lecturers include such leaders and innovators as Robert A. Millikan, Igor I. Sikorsky, Irving Langmuir, Arthur H. Compton, Simon Ramo, Lillian M. Gilbreth, Claude E. Shannon, Vice-Admiral H.G. Rickover, William Shockley, Jay W. Forrester, Hans A. Bethe, Benoit B. Mandelbrot, and Ray Dolby.
This Year's Lecture
The History of the Steinmetz Memorial Lectures
Charles Proteus Steinmetz - Edison Exploritorium
The 2008-2009 Lecture
Dr. Lawrence L. Kazmerski
Executive Director, Science and Technology Partnerships, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Solar Photovoltaics Technology: The Beginning of the Revolution
Monday, April 27, 2009
7:30 PM
Nott Memorial
Union College
Schenectady, New York
Lawrence L. Kazmerski is Executive Director, Science and Technology Partnerships at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado - having served as Director of the National Center for Photovoltaics for the period 1999-2008. He received his B.S.E.E. in 1967, M.S.E.E. in 1968, and his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1970 - all from the University of Notre Dame. He served in a postdoctoral position at the University of Notre Dame Radiation Research Laboratory (Atomic Energy Commission), January through August 1971, and was on the electrical engineering faculty of the University of Maine before coming to SERI (NREL) in 1977. His research at Maine included NSF- and ERDA-funded work in thin-film photovoltaics and the report of the first thin-film copper-indium-diselenide (CIS) solar cell. He was SERI's first staff member in photovoltaics, hired specifically to establish efforts in the characterization of photovoltaic materials and devices; he led NREL efforts in measurements and characterization for more than 20 years. He has held adjunct professorships at the University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Denver. Dr. Kazmerski has published over 320 journal papers in the areas of solar cells, thin films, semiconductor materials and devices, surface and interface analysis, molecular beam epitaxy, semiconductor defects, scanning probe microscopy, nanoscale technology, high-temperature superconductivity, solar and photovoltaics technologies, and solar hydrogen. He has authored or edited four books, and serves on the editorial board of several journals, and he has more than 160 invited presentations at international conferences, workshops, and seminars.  He was co-founder and editor of the journal SOLAR CELLS, published by Elsevier-Sequoia (1979-1991). Kazmerski is Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. He has four R&D 100 Awards. He is active in the IEEE, AVS, MRS, APS, ISES, and ASES. Kazmerski was the recipient of the Peter Mark Memorial Award of the AVS in 1981 and IEEE William R. Cherry Award in 1993. He has received several international recognitions for his work in solar photovoltaics. Kazmerski is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), a Fellow of the AVS, and a Fellow of the International Energy Foundation (IEF). His is a Distinguished Lecturer of the AVS (1999-present). In 2000, Kazmerski was recognized as a Honorary Member of the AVS for his contributions to science and the Society. Kazmerski was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. He received the World PV Award from the international PV communities representing the Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the U.S. for outstanding leadership and contributions to the worldwide advancement of photovoltaic science and technology in 2006. In September 2006, he was recognized with the Nelson W. Taylor Award for Materials Science by Penn State University. He received the 2007 Karl W. Boer Medalist for contributions to solar energy, and he is the recipient of the 2008 ASES Charles Greeley Abbot Award for outstanding leadership and scientific excellence in the research and development of photovoltaics. Recently, Kazmerski was inducted into the Environmental Hall of Fame in the Field of Solar Energy (Photovoltaics Technology). In December 2008, he was the United Kingdom ISES David Hall Memorial Lecturer for his contributions to international photovoltaic R&D. Kazmerski is Visiting Professor of Solar Energy at the University of Southampton in the U.K., and in January 2009, he was elected as Honorary Professor at Stromstad Academy in Sweden.
The 2007 Lecture
Tod Machover, Professor of Music and Media at MIT, delivers the 69th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture
Enabling Music Expression for Everyone
Monday, October 15, 2007
7:30 PM
Memorial Chapel
Union College
Schenectady, New York
Tod Machover - called "America's Most Wired Composer by The Los Angeles Times, is widely recognized as one of the most significant and innovative composers of his generation, and is also celebrated for inventing new technology for music. He studied with Elliott Carter at The Juilliard School, was the first Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez's IRCAM in Paris, and is currently Professor of Music and Media at the MIT Media Lab and also Visiting Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Machover's music has been commissioned and performed by many of the world's most prominent soloists and ensembles, including Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera, the BBC Symphony, the Ensemble InterContemporain, the Boston Pops, the Ying Quartet, and cellist Matt Haimovitz. He has been particularly noted for his large-scale interactive media projects such as the science ficton opera VALIS, the Brain Opera, and Toy Symphony, as well as for the design of creative music tools such as Hyperscore. Machover is currently working on two new operas: the robotic Death and the Powers, with an original libretto by U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, and Skellig, based on the award-winning novel by David Almond.
The 2006-2007 Lecture
Dr. William Wulf, President, National Academy of Engineering, delivers the 68th Steinmetz Memorial
Engineering as part of a Liberal Education
Monday, April 16, 2007
at 7:30 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York
Bill Wulf received the first Computer Science Ph.D. ever awarded at the University of Virginia in 1968. He then joined Carnegie-Mellon University as Assistant Professor of Computer Science, becoming Associate Professor in 1973 and Professor in 1975. In 1981 he left Carnegie-Mellon and founded Tartan Laboratories and served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until 1988. In 1988-1990 he was Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation. In 1990 he returned to the University of Virginia as AT&T Professor and University Professor. Bill Wulf is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he was elected President of the National Academy of Engineering, which operates under a congressional charter and presidential executive orders that call on it to provide advice to the government on issues of science and engineering. He has directed over 25 Ph.D. theses and is the author or co-author of three books, two patents and over 100 papers.
The 2005 Lecture
Dennis Woodford, President of Electranix, delivers the 67th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:
Engineers and the Strength of Our National Communities
Monday, October 24, 2005
at 7:30 PM in the Nott Memorial
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York
Dennis Woodford was born in Melbourne, Australia ('45) and graduated from the University of Melbourne ('66), and the University of Manitoba with a Master of Science ('73). He was Special Studies Engineer in Transmission Planning of Manitoba Hydro where he worked on the Winnipeg - Twin Cities 500 kV interconnection and the Nelson River HVDC project. He is the original developer of the PSCAD/EMTDC simulation software, which he started in 1975 while at Manitoba Hydro.
He joined the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre as Executive Director ('86-'91) and is now President of Elextranix Corporation, a consulting company based in Winnipeg. He is a registered Professional Engineer with the Province of Manitoba and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba.
He is the recipient of the IEEE Power Engineering Society Uno Lamm Award. He is Chairman of the IEEE Subcommittee on HVDC and FACTS, and is active in CIGRE.
An individual can have a profound and everlasting impact on our society, and engineers cannot be left out in this regard. This lecture will explore how engineers have influenced us and set paths that have strengthened our roles as pillars of our nations.
The 2003 Lecture
Dr. Paul M. Horn, IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research, delivers the 66th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on:
The Future of Information Technology
Monday, October 13, 2003
at 7:00 PM in the Memorial Chapel
on the Union College campus,
Schenectady, New York
Dr. Paul M. Horn oversees the world's largest and most prolific research organization dedicated to information technology, with 3,000 researchers at eight labs worldwide. Under Horn's leadership as senior vice-president and director, IBM Research has produced an unmatched string of technological breakthroughs, including the chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue, the world&'s first copper chip, the giant magneto-resistive head (GMR) and strained silicon (a discovery that allows chips to run up to 35% faster). A solid state physicist by training, Horn has also led IBM Research into a distinctly cross-disciplinary Grand Challenge with project Blue Gene - a $100 million dollar effort to build the worlds first petafolp-scale computer for the express purpose of helping to understand how human proteins fold.
In addition, Horn has implemented a unique management system which views as inextricably linked the need to conduct exploratory research and the delivery of marketplace-ready technology. As a result, IBM Research consistently speeds the flow of innovation through IBM's product groups to the market while pursuing research areas likely to yield groundbreaking or even disruptive technologies in a number of key areas including semiconductors, data management, servers and middleware.
Horn is currently focusing the division on several crucial areas of research: the ongoing grand challenge for the I/T industry to build autonomic computing systems, delivery of the technologies to support IBM's e-business on demand strategy, the establishment of Services Research as a cutting-edge area of bona fide scientific inquiry, and the exploration of novel modes of storage, processing and computing, such as nanomechanical devices, atomic-scale manipulation, carbon nanotube structures and so-called superhuman speech systems.
Autonomic Computing seeks to define and build computing systems that reduce I/T complexity for users by functioning in a manner similar to our bodies, adapting automatically to a wide range of circumstances, but without conscious intervention. Such an approach, along with technologies that allow business processes to be modeled and optimized in real-time, will support the flexibility inherent in the vision for on demand enterprises.
In 2002, Horn announced the formation of On Demand Innovation Services, an organization with IBM's Research division where scientists work directly with customers as consultants to gather real-word requirements and problems to fuel research projects. Horn views this as the vanguard for the next exciting area of I/T research.
Horn was previously vice president and lab director of IBM Researchs Almaden Research Center in San Jose, where he was credited with tightly linking research innovation with the corporations storage development operation.
Horn graduated from Clarkson College of Technology and received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Rochester in 1973. Prior to joining IBM in 1979, Horn was a professor of physics in the James Franck Institute and the Physics Department and at the University of Chicago. Dr. Horn is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow from 1974-1978. He is a former Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters and has published over 85 scientific and technical papers.
Horn has received numerous awards including the 1988 Bertram Eugene Warren award from the American Crystallographic Association, the 2000 Distinguished Leadership award from the New York Hall of Science, the 2002 Hutchison Medal from the University of Rochester, and the 2002 Pake Prize from the American Physical Society. In 2002 he was also named as one of Americas top technical leaders by Scientific American Magazine. He is also a member of numerous professional committees including the Clarkson Industry University Board of Trustees, the UC Berkeley Industrial Advisory Board, the Gallaudet University Advisory Board, and is a trustee of the New York Hall of Science and the Committee for Economic Development.
The History of the Steinmetz Memorial Lectures
1925 - Dr. Michael I. Pupin
Law, Description and Hypothesis in the Electrical Science
1926 - Dr. Ernest J. Berg
The Solution of Transient Phenomena by Elementary Mathematics
1927 - Dr. Robert A. Millikan
Spectroscopic Prediction
1928 - Dr. Max Mason
Substitutes for Experience
1929 - Dr. Dexter S. Kimball
Modem Engineering Economics
1930 - Dr. William E. Wickenden
Discipline of Discipleship
1932 - Dr. Karl T. Compton
The Battle of the Alchemists
1934 - Dr. C. E. Kenneth Mees
Scientific Thought and Social Reconstruction"
1935 - Dr. Robert E. Doherty
An Undeveloped Phase of Engineering Education"
1936 - Dr. Gerard Swope
An Engineering View of and from Steinmetz"
1937 - Dr. Harold G. Moulton
Engineering Progress and Economic Progress"
1938 - Mr. Igor I. Sikorsky
Science and the Future of Aviation"
1939 - Dr. Frank B. Jewett
The Technical Significance of the First Transcontinental Telephone Line"
1941 - Dr. Frank Howard Lahey
Modem Medicine and Surgery-Its Progress and Place in the Community"
1942 - Dr. Comfort Avery Adams
Cooperation vs. War"
1943 - Dr. Harold Willis Dodds
Postwar World and the American Tradition"
1944 - Dr. Stephen S. Wise
Man Moves Forward"
1945 - Dr. Irving Langmuir
Science and Postwar Incentives"
1946 - Dr. Sanford A. Moss
Because I Know It's True"
1947 - Dr. Arthur H. Compton
The Birth of Atomic Energy and Its Human Meaning"
1948 - Dr. Philip Sporn
Potentialities of the Electrical Industry in Shaping the Destiny of America"
1949 - Dr. Kirtley F. Mather
Natural Resources and Human Progress"
1950 - Dr. Charles E. Wilson
The Moral Aspects of Scientific Progress"
1952 - Dr. Hollis L. Caswell
The Great Reappraisal of Public Education"
1953 - Dr. Harold S. Osborn
What Is Coming in Tele-Communications"
1954 - Dr. Charles Allen Thomas
Science, Progress and the Human Mind"
1955 - Dr. Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam
The Nature of the Contemporary Crisis"
1956 - Dr. Cornelius Packard Rhoads
The Social and Economic Significance of Medical Research"
1957 - Admiral William Morrow Fechteler, Ph.D.
The Professional and Technical Requirements of the Armed Forces"
1958 - Dr. Joseph Allen Hynek
Man's Satellites: Doorway to Space"
1959 - Dr. Simon Ramo
Space Conquest and the New Technical Age"
1960 - Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth
Management and Men"
1962 - Dr. Claude E. Shannon
The Third Frontier of Science"
1963 - Vice-Admiral H.G. Rickover
Then individual in a Free Society"
1964 - Dr. J. Herbert Hollomon
The Changing Role Science and Technology Play in the National Well-Being"
1965 - Mr. Walker Lee Cisler
Expanding Horizons in Electric Power"
1966 - Dr. William Shockley
Mental Tools for Scientific Thinking"
1967 - Dr. Edward C. Welsh
Benefits of the Aerospace Revolution"
1968 - Dr. Ralph W. Sockman
Computer Age Morality"
1969 - Mr. J. Erik Jonsson
From the Heart"
1970 - Mr. Lelan F. Sillin, Jr.
Changing Values in a Technological Society"
1971 - Mr. Patrick E. Haggerty
The Productive Society"
1972 - Prof. Harold W. Bibber, Mr. Emil J. Remscheid, & Mr. Joseph S. Hayden
Recollections of Charles P. Steinmetz"
1973 - Dr. John Bardeen
Solid State Physics: Accomplishments and Future Prospects"
1975 - Dr. Richard W. Roberts
Energy: From Steinmetz to the 70’s"
1976 - Dr. Jay W. Forrester
Dynamics of Social Systems"
1977 - Dr. Hans A. Bethe
The Necessity of Fission Power"
1978 - Dr. Merril Eisenbud
The Human Environment: Past, Present, and Future"
1979 - Dr. Myron Tribus
Seven Commandments for the Survival of a Technological Society"
1980 - Mr. Reginald H. Jones
Needed: A Renaissance in Technical Creativity"
1983 - Dr. Margaret N. Maxey
America's Energy Odyssey; Between Energy and Entropy"
1984 - Dr. Roland W. Schmitt
The Next Scientific Revolution: The Conquest of Complexity"
1985 - Mr. Erich Bloch
Basic Research and Economic Health: The Coming Challenge"
1986 - Dr. Ivar Giaever
Pathological Science II"
1987 - Dr. Ernest L. Boyer
College: Making the Connections"
1988 - Dr. Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Fractals: From Geometry to Physics and On to Art"
1989 - Dr. Robert M. White
Technology and Global Environment"
1990 - Dr. Eleanor Baum
Defying Stereotypes: Training the Next Decade of Engineers"
1991 - Dr. Walter L. Robb
Imaging the Human Body -The Schenectady-Milwaukee Miracle"
1992 - Dr. Andrew C. Kadak
The Atom and Human Values"
1993 - Dr. Ray Dolby
The Quest for Recording Quality"
1994 - Dr. Jerrier A. Haddad
The Engineering Community - Pressure, Evolution, Opportunities, Problems"
1995 - Dr. Edward A. Parrish
Engineering Education for a Changing Engineering Profession"
1996 - Dr. William W. Hogan
The Revolution in the Electricity Industry"
2001 - Dr. Charles Concordia
Engineering and Society: Logic and Politics
2003 - Dr. Paul M. Horn
The Future of Information Technology
2005 - Dennis Woodford
Engineers and the Strength of Our National Communities
2007 - Dr. William Wulf
Engineering as Part of a Liberal Education?"
2007 - Dr. Tod Machover
Enabling Music Expression for Everyone