Director Lecture Series

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School

Arizona State University *

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93344

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Electrical Engineering

Date

Feb 20, 2024

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docx

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Uploaded by LieutenantChimpanzee2687

Professor Chester 9/15/22 Sustainability in the Anthropocene Maxwell Pastore ASU 101 CEE The speaker for the lecture that I attended today was Professor Chester. He talked about the Sustainability in the Anthropocene. He has taught for 11 years here at ASU, originally graduating from UC Berkeley. He is a Civil/Environmental engineering major, that completed a 4+1 to obtain his master's degree. He worked for many of his years in Pittsburgh dealing with geological and environmental issues such as the Steelers’ football stadium and the Pirates' baseball field. Then as he worked for a longer time, he eventually got moved up into the project management position. Working with the same companies, he led numerous projects with immense amounts of contractors and subcontractors. Now, these jobs were all before he decided to go and obtain his Ph.D. He went back to UC Berkeley, and got his Ph.D., then proceed to work for the Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory. They do a majority of studies for the government, but they are very important. One of the main jobs he had was to manage the capture and storage of carbon in the environment. He then decided to teach, mainly graduate students, as well as work with his team here in Arizona. He has spent a total of 21 years in the field, and still more to come.

After the professor's introduction, he started explaining what society thinks of sustainability. It is explained as 3 pillars, including economics, environment, and people. This then leads to professor Chester asking how we think we should make pipes for the removal of excess rainwater after a storm. He explained the code of a 100-year pipe, which meant that the pipes would be able to take care of a water flow of a storm that was so strong it would only be probable once every 100 years. The whole idea of the example was the struggles of predicting and creating for future generations, because if you put too many supplies and money into a project that doesn’t need to be that big or powerful then it is a waste. He then segmented the changes we see on our phones for activities. He used the bank as his first example, explaining how he used to drive to the bank but can now access everything from his phone. The change from physical to technological is happening fast, and we need to be aware of the changes, and the new problems that arise from it. He explained how our living environment is being disrupted, making abnormal become the new normal. Our world is rapidly destabilizing with these adaptations and our job is to figure out how to position the infrastructure to respond. We have created the opportunity for 3rd party companies to control the infrastructure through everything we buy from them. He concluded with some ideas for us to take home and explain to others about civil engineering as a whole. The major consists of solving these problems with infrastructure, and while the design of the product is simpler, the challenges with the repetitive problems are the main focus. Then he said that building consensus classes were good to take earlier to get more in-depth with the contents of the talk and he thanked us for listening. I truly enjoyed the talk and was interested in it throughout the entire presentation. It was interesting to realize how the times have changed by hearing it from another person's prospective from another generation. To see that life wasn’t as contained in technology was fascinating to

me. I also didn't know the influx of new 3rd parties that had such control over the technology they are selling. I also was interested in the fact that he stated that the designs and ideas of projects were simple in a sense. I always thought that was the hardest part of engineering overall. I now understand how the repetitive problems that come up can be more of an issue especially as products become more outdated. This truly helped me continue on this career path. I was struggling with exactly which direction I wanted to go in engineering, so when I signed up for construction engineering, I didn’t know what to expect. Now that I have been able to listen to a true professional in the field, I feel comfortable continuing on this path and getting to a good quality job that I enjoy. I appreciate Professor Chester was able to have time to talk to me and all of the other students and thank him for the clarification I needed at this time.

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