11^th German-American Frontiers of Engineering Symposium

April 24 - 27, 2008
Irvine, California

Aims

The activity aims to bring together outstanding, early-career German and American engineers from industry, universities, and other research institutions to introduce their areas of engineering research and technical work, thereby facilitating an interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge and methodology that could eventually lead to the development of cooperative networks of young engineers from both countries.

Implementation

Conferences are held annually, typically alternating between Germany and the United States, with about 30 engineers from each country participating. An organizing committee comprised of German and U.S. engineers develops the program for the event and assists in the selection of participants. Co-chairs for the 2008 GAFOE meeting are Kai Sundmacher, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Magdeburg, and Tresa Pollock, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan. The areas that will be covered at the 2008 GAFOE symposium are "Advanced Imaging Technologies", "Energy Harvesting", "Micromanufacturing/Microprocess Engineering", and "Nanotechnology for Medical Therapies".

Background

Since 1995, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has held an annual Frontiers of Engineering symposium that brings together 100 outstanding engineers (ages 30-45) from U.S. companies, universities, and government to discuss leading-edge research and technical work across a range of engineering fields. The goal of the symposium is to introduce these engineers to each other, challenge them to think about developments and problems at the frontiers of areas different from their own, and thereby facilitate collaborative work, the transfer of new techniques and approaches across fields, and establishment of contacts among the next generation of leaders in engineering.

In 1998, the Frontiers program was expanded into the international arena with the first German-American Frontiers of Engineering Symposium organized in cooperation with the German-American Academic Council (DAAK) on the German side. Since then, the following German-American Frontiers of Engineering (GAFOE) symposia have been held: the first in May 1998, in Dresden, Germany; a second in April 1999, in Irvine, California; and a third in April 2000, in Bremen, Germany. At the end of the year 2000 the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation replaced the DAAK as partner for the organization of the symposia. The fourth symposium was held in October 2001, in Essen , Germany , and the fifth in May 2002, in Washington DC . In May 2003 the sixth symposium took place in Ludwigsburg, Germany, the seventh was held in April 2004, in Washington DC, and the eighth in Potsdam, Germany, in May 2005, and the ninth symposium was held in May 2006 in Murray Hill, NJ, at the conference center of Lucent Technologies/Bell Laboratories. In April 2007 the tenth GAFOE symposium took place in Hamburg, Germany.