FROM THE DEAN
Louis A. Martin-Vega
The NC State campus is reinvigorated each fall with the arrival of both new and returning students. These young engineers and computer scientists will be key drivers of future economic growth, and the College plays an important role in ensuring that they are prepared to join — and start — the businesses and industries that propel our economy forward.
Our efforts are part of an international trend. Around the world, governments and industries are calling for more well-trained engineers, sentiments echoed by President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness during a recent meeting held at NC State as well as in studies released by the US National Academy of Engineering. I was recently in Argentina and found that its government wants to triple the number of engineering graduates produced by its universities.
Here in our College, we have continued to work hard to produce top-flight engineering graduates while absorbing a significant budget cut. I want to assure you that our budget decisions have protected academic programs as much as possible. Fortunately, funding for our research programs has grown significantly, bringing in millions of dollars that support many of our graduate students, centers and laboratories.
This issue of our alumni magazine celebrates those research accomplishments, and many more. The centerfold shows the many ways our college has grown and improved over the past five years. Another article outlines the economic impact of our alumni, who are responsible for creating tens of thousands of jobs statewide and around the country.
You will also read about the on-and-off-the-field heroics — and incredible time-management skills — of our engineering student-athletes. And you will learn how our faculty shape state and national policy as advisors to some of the world’s most influential people and organizations.
We are also happy to report that the solid-state transformers developed by our National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, the FREEDM Systems Center, were named to MIT Technology Review’s 2011 list of the world’s 10 most important emerging technologies.
While these accomplishments are impressive, we are not standing still. The College continues to move closer to our goal of becoming one of the world’s premier colleges of engineering.
I hope you will enjoy this issue of NC State Engineering and come away with a renewed sense of pride in your college.
Louis A. Martin-Vega, Dean