Category: Engineering

KKR to Buy S&P Global’s Engineering Solutions Unit for $975 Million

Private equity giant KKR & Co. will buy S&P Global’s engineering solutions business for $975 million, the financial services provider said on Tuesday. The move comes months after S&P Global said it would sell the unit, which serves more than 6,000 customers in the aerospace, defense, energy and architecture industries, among others. “The divestiture of…


University Students in Philippines Wear Imaginative Hats to Avoid Cheating During Exams

Students from a Philippine engineering university have recently made headlines for wearing imaginative headgear to avoid cheating during exams. Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz, a mechanical engineering professor at Bicol University College of Engineering, asked her students to make their own “anti-cheating” hats to wear during midterm exams. Her students then came up with a range of…


A Tour of Fonthill Castle, the Home of a 19th-Century Archaeologist Full of Eclectic Wonders

While from a distance Fonthill Castle does much to evoke its European counterparts—with its imposing, bulky countenance, its heavenward towers and spires, its parapets and chimneys—inside, and at its heart, it’s an altogether different creature. If the castles of yore across the Atlantic were meant to protect and deter, this is every bit the opposite:…


When Racism Permeates Math, Science, and Engineering, Can Society Survive?

Commentary I recently attended an online seminar put on by the world’s preeminent society for computer scientists, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), titled, “Language Matters: DEI and the Question of URM.” DEI stands for “diversity, equity, inclusion,” and comprises an entire department in most corporations that oversees the hiring of more minority employees and…


The Webb Institute: A One-of-a-Kind Marine Engineering School Inspiring Students to Strive for Excellence

Every fall semester, on the North Shore of Long Island, freshmen attending Webb Institute climb into imperfect, home-grown vessels and set out on a course with hopes of winning the race without sinking. The onlookers, mostly upperclassmen, watch the voyages taking place in the harbor, immersed in their own memorable initiation as new undergraduate students…


A Modern-Day Da Vinci: Art Thompson Fabricates Dreams Into Reality 

Along with more than 3 billion spectators, Art Thompson’s anxiety grew as he intensely watched monitors in a packed control room in New Mexico. Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner was about to leap from a capsule, 128,560 feet (24.5 miles) above the earth’s surface. On Oct. 14, 2012, 50 seconds after stepping off the capsule ledge,…