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82 PCB007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2023 able to have that flexibility in our undergradu- ate program? Sometimes, particularly in the sciences, there's a lot of depth, but not a lot of breadth, and sometimes that reflects later in life in one's personality and social skills. Absolutely. I love the idea of providing a lib- eral arts view on a science education, because where does science go? Science goes to serve humanity. Humanity is much wider than the science itself. You're speaking our language. We do "human centered engineering" and that means two things. One, that we're thinking about the impact on society, the classrooms, and the edu- cation we deliver and the research that we do. We're also thinking about the humans in the classroom. How do we meet everybody's edu- cational needs? People come from diverse back- grounds, so bringing those pieces together takes a unique approach to educating engi- neers. Historically, engineering has been a male dominated profession. Go back in time long enough and nearly all occupations were male dominated. But for some reason, engineering has clung on to that concept. Is that changing? I hope so. When I started in 1990 as an under- grad, there were about 10% women engi- neers in the workforce, with a little higher per- centage in some other disciplines. We're now closer to 15% to 20%, and a little bit higher in some disciplines. Disciplines like environmen- tal and biomedical engineering have the largest representation of women in engineering. e lower proportions are in more conventional disciplines like mechanical and electrical engi- neering. Why is that? ere is a whole slew of rea- sons why it was that way and why haven't we grown even more than we have today? Why is it still at 20%? One way to attract more women is to bring in that human piece I was speak- ing about, that human centeredness, the soci- etal impact has been shown in research. Here at Dartmouth, 53% of the 2023 graduating engineering majors were women, so we're at gender parity. We really point to that idea of having that human centered focus on inclusion and belonging. You made a comment several months ago, stating, "We don't do engineering in silos." Explain more about that. At ayer School of Engineer- ing, we purposely don't have engineering departments. We have a school of engi- neering; we have program areas like biomedical and electrical engineering, but we're not set up like a tradi- tional school of engineering with siloed departments. This approach better enables, better catalyzed interdisciplinarity. e problems we're facing in society today are not simple problems. We're not figuring out how to make a wheel as cave people did eons ago. ese are very complex, multidisci- plinary problems around health care and AI, climate mitigation, batteries, solar, and data analytics. ese multidisciplinary problems require people who are trained in thinking across disci- plines. By having nontraditional departments, it enables rich collaboration and connection. I know I'm getting old when I start any sen- tence with the phrase, "Kids these days." In your view, what is the state of the current generation of students vs. past generations? People come from diverse backgrounds, so bringing those pieces together takes a unique approach to educating engineers.