Joe Herkert of North Carolina State University

This talk derives from a project that collected essays on "trailblazers" in the field of engineering ethics education.  It focuses on the first 30 years of the speaker's career (1971-2001) and how he came to be interested in, and successful at, teaching and scholarship in the field.  It concludes with recaps of his recent research on autonomous vehicles and the Boeing 737 MAX crashes.

Biography:

Joseph “Joe” Herkert, D.Sc., is Associate Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology and Society (STS), North Carolina State University. Herkert has been teaching engineering ethics and STS courses for more than thirty-six years. He has published articles on engineering ethics and societal implications of technology in engineering, law, social science, and applied ethics books and journals and is an editor of two anthologies. Herkert has served the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) in several capacities, including society President and Editor of IEEE Technology & Society Magazine, and has been a leader in other professional organizations including the National Institute for Engineering Ethics and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an ASEE Fellow, and a Life Senior Member of IEEE. Prior to his academic career, Herkert was a consultant for more than five years in the electric power industry.