Henry Petroski, the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, will present the 2008 Vecellio Distinguished Lecture on Friday, Oct. 3 at 4 p.m. in 2150 Torgersen Hall on the Virginia Tech campus. He will speak about "Success and Failure in Design: Lessons from History".
Petroski has written often on the topics of invention and design, success and failure, and the history of engineering and technology. Among his 14 books on these subjects are To Engineer Is Human, which was adapted for a BBC-television documentary; Design Paradigms; Invention by Design; and Engineers of Dreams, which is a history of American bridge building.
In addition to writing and lecturing about large engineering structures, Petroski has also published several books on the history and design of common objects, and the lessons that they hold for understanding the built environment and how humans interact with it. Among his books on everyday things are The Pencil, The Evolution of Useful Things, The Book on the Bookshelf, Small Things Considered, and The Toothpick. His books have been translated into a variety of languages, including Chinese, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.
He has appeared often on radio and television—including NPR, PBS, and commercial networks such as CBS, CNN, and CNBC—discussing matters of design, history, and engineering, including their relationship to current events. His opinion pieces have appeared on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers and magazines. He also writes a regular column on engineering for the magazine American Scientist, and a column on the profession for Prism, which is published by the Society for Engineering Education.
He also lectures frequently, both at home and abroad, and has delivered numerous keynote addresses at national and international conferences, as well as lectures for general audiences. Among the scores of distinguished lectures he has delivered are the Easter Holiday Lecture for the Institution of Structural Engineers and the McLaughlin Lecture for the Institution of Engineers of Ireland. He has served as an eminent speaker for the Structural College of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, lecturing throughout that country. He has also been a featured speaker at numerous colleges, universities, and research laboratories throughout the United States. His series of three Vanuxem Lectures at Princeton University formed the basis for the book, Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design.