Donna Koechner, Dr. Bernard Amadei and Dr. Ramiro Jordan are the speakers for Monday evening’s Voices of Los Alamos meeting. Photo Courtesy VOLA
VOICES OF LOS ALAMOS NEWS
The topic of our next VOLA meeting will be “Peace Engineering, a New Mindset”. Peace Engineering is defined as the intentional application of systemic-level thinking of science, technology and engineering principles to directly promote and support conditions for peace. Peace Engineering works directly towards a world where prosperity, sustainability, social equity, entrepreneurship, transparency, community voice and engagement, ethics and a culture of quality thrive. Engineers have the power to play a vital role in the creative solutions that can radically transform and improve the wellbeing of people and other living systems, day to day. We want a new mindset for all existing disciplines, not only engineering, and new ones we have to create to address the global challenges.
The Zoom link for the meeting will be provided on the Voices Of Los Alamos Facebook page..
Our speakers will be:
● Donna Koechner, Program Manager for Peace Engineering – ECHO, founding member of the Peace Engineering Consortium, and a research faculty at the University of New Mexico.
● Dr. Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
● Dr. Ramiro Jordan, member of the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of New Mexico.
Dr. Ramiro Jordan is a scientist, innovator, educator, and entrepreneur. He is a member of the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of New Mexico. Currently he is the Associate Dean of Engineering for Global Initiatives and Associate Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research activities include sustainability, Peace Engineering, smart grids, cognitive radio, multidimensional signal processing, and software development. He is the president of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), and founder in 1990 of the Ibero-American Consortium for Science and Technology Education (ISTEC).
Dr. Bernard Amadei is a Distinguished Professor and Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Amadei is the Founding Director of the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities. He is also the Founding President of Engineers Without Borders – USA and the co-founder of the Engineers Without Borders-International network. Among other distinctions, Dr. Amadei is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Construction. He is also an elected Senior Ashoka Fellow. Dr. Amadei holds seven honorary doctoral degrees (UMass Lowell; Carroll College; Clarkson; Drexel; Worcester Polytechnic Institute; the Technion in Israel; and SUNY-ESF). In 2013 and 2014, Dr. Amadei served as a Science Envoy to Pakistan and Nepal for the US Department of State.
Donna Koechner is Program Manager for Peace Engineering – ECHO, founding member of the Peace Engineering Consortium, and a research faculty at the University of New Mexico. She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University and an M.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UNM. She has over seventeen years international experience creating and leading technical teams and supporting entrepreneurial activities, working in system design, characterization, installation, software development, hardware integration and quality assurance. She is passionate about the environment, conservation, human rights and sustainable development and is actively involved in local community service and conservation initiatives.