'Engineering Rising to the Challenge' initiative to provide solutions for COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

The College of Engineering has launched the "Engineering Rising to the Challenge" initiative to generate and share solutions, both to address the immediate COVID-19 crisis and to prepare the world for future emergencies.

The initiative responds to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s Call to Action on COVID-19, announced in April, “but is also a time to think beyond the current pandemic,” said Mark Lundstrom, acting dean of the College of Engineering. “It’s an opportunity to think about how the COVID-19 pandemic will transform universities, how it will transform our world, and how we can engineer a better and more resilient future.”

Arvind Raman, executive associate dean of the faculty and staff of the College of Engineering, said: “COVID-19 presents profound medical, technological, social and economic challenges. As part of a great 21st-century land-grant institution, Purdue Engineering is applying its expertise, problem-solving approach and public-service commitment to help meet urgent needs and developing longer-term solutions for a more robust and resilient world.”

The college has created a Rising to the Challenge website to provide information and insights to academic institutions, communities, businesses, government leaders and others. This site offers information on Purdue Engineering response efforts, research innovation, thoughts on living in the COVID-19-transformed world, faculty experts and events.

In the first event, the Shah Family Global Innovation Lab hosted a webinar on “Responding to COVID-19” on May 12.

Five key themes

Engineering Rising to the Challenge encompasses five key themes:

Rapid response: From inventing rapid hand-held tests for COVID-19 to 3D-printing protective equipment, to identifying previously unknown risks to public health from building closures, to projects to diminish disease spread on campus. Purdue Engineering students, faculty and staff are responding to the urgent challenges of the pandemic while driving permanent innovation in emergency response capabilities.

Envisioning the future: It is likely that the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 will change the way our society works, lives and innovates for decades to come. How will we respond to future pandemics, financial crises, and natural or human-made disasters? How might we “engineer” resilience into our society’s systems – infrastructure, logistics, wireless connectivity, innovation, healthcare, energy, food, manufacturing, financial, business, and social and community organizations? Engineering innovation will play a powerful transformative role in enabling resilience in our society’s systems. Purdue Engineering faculty are taking a leading role in advancing public dialogue on the technological and social innovations that will shape our collective resilient future.

Research and innovation: By engineering new technologies that detect and inhibit the spread of infectious diseases; strengthen our hospitals, supply chains and utility systems; and offer bold solutions that promote resilience of systems to natural and anthropogenic disasters, Purdue Engineering faculty are paving the way for a more resilient future.

Online and remote education: The rapid switch to remote instruction in the spring of 2020 will likely challenge assumptions that are built into our learning environment. Post-COVID, how will we be teaching classes, doing hands-on and co-curricular learning? What will the student on-campus experience look like post-COVID? What can we anticipate and do today to be prepared for this future? Purdue Engineering faculty, instructional staff and students are rethinking online and remote education for the coming academic year and beyond. Educational innovations, including the use of virtual labs and augmented reality, are pushing the envelope of interactive online learning.

Working and fostering community: What enables us to work effectively and build community remotely? Enhancing 5G technology, strengthening the resilience and cybersecurity of our computing infrastructure, and experimenting with new digital platforms for online meetings, and building communities of support virtually are just a few ways that Purdue Engineering faculty, students and staff are tackling this challenge.

"Post-COVID universities will be different," Lundstrom said. "The world will be different. Purdue faculty, students and staff look forward to the challenge of engineering a path to a better future."

Source: Arvind Raman, coeoaa@purdue.edu