Established in 2018, the Fred Kan Distinguished Lecture Series in Engineering Ethics invites thought leaders to share research and insights that challenge us to think differently about ethical issues in engineering. Thanks to a generous donation from alumnus, Mr. Fred Kan, the lecture brings together undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members to learn and discuss these ethical considerations and implications.
Past distinguished lecturers include:
- Dr. Robert Irish (Beyond the Code: How Should we Teach Engineers about Ethical Decision Making?, 2020)
- Dr. Jason Millar (Ethics and the Future of Automated Mobility – Two Challenges, 2022)
- Deborah Raji (Audits and Accountability in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, 2023)
Register for free by October 10, 2024 using this link.
For more information on this lecture series, please contact: istep@utoronto.ca
Lecture Overview:
Our infrastructural systems, including basic utilities like electricity, water and sewage, telecommunications, and transportation – shape and enable our lives as we know them. Over the past century, they’ve grown to span the globe and so to define, in the words of Ursula Franklin, the ‘real world of technology’ in which we all live. Today, faced with the reality of anthropogenic climate change but with new possibilities of renewable energy generation at scale, we have the opportunity to transform these systems so that they are reliable and sustainable, resilient and equitable. The infrastructural networks that we benefit from today are the physical embodiment of the values of those who came before us, and now it’s our turn: we can collectively build out these systems for our shared future, informed by a new kind of engineering ethics.
Speaker Bio:
Deb Chachra, PhD, is the author of How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World (2023) and a Professor of Engineering at Olin College of Engineering near Boston, Massachusetts, where she was one of the earliest faculty members. She works primarily at the intersection of technology and culture, and she speaks, writes, consults, and facilitates globally around design, education (particularly engineering education), and equity and inclusion issues. Prior to joining Olin College, Dr. Chachra held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, and she completed her graduate and undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto. While an engineering student, she co-founded Science Outreach, the first science and engineering summer camp at the university.
