Engineering the Harvard Engineer

For most members of Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, it was just another monthly meeting, the last of 2006. For Venkatesh Narayanamurti, dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, it was one of the most important meetings of his career.

On that December afternoon, the professors gathered, as usual, at the Faculty Room, a spacious chamber in University Hall with sea-green and tan walls, lush Oriental carpets, leather-topped tables and chairs, five crystal chandeliers, and tall arched windows overlooking Harvard Yard. Dozens of oil paintings and marble busts of Harvard's past presidents and other luminaries--William James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, to name a few--add to the aura of gravitas and tradition.

Read the complete article in IEEE Spectrum