Founding Director of Smith Engineering Program to Present Lecture

Domenico Grasso, Rosemary Bradford Hewlett '40 Professor and Chair of the Picker Program in Engineering and Technology at Smith, will discuss "The Seductive Equation and Engineering Thought" at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 29, in Stoddard Auditorium, with a reception following in the Alumnae House living room.

Formerly the head of the University of Connecticut Environmental Engineering Program, Grasso came to Smith in January of 2000 to lead the college's new engineering program, the first such program at a women's college and one of only a handful at liberal arts colleges.
Grasso is one of four Smith faculty members named to a chaired professorship this year who are presenting lectures to inaugurate their new positions.

A graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Grasso holds a master's degree from Purdue University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He is a registered professional engineer in the states of Connecticut and Texas and has been a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley, a NATO Fellow and an invited technical expert to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna.

Most recently, he was appointed to a two-year term as a member of the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board and was elected president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, an international professional society of undergraduate and graduate faculty members.

The event -- which is free, open to the public and wheelchair accessible -- is the third in the college's chaired professor lecture series for 2000-01.

The final talk in the series is "Shifting Paradigms: Jesus, Paul and Judaism" by Karl P. Donfried, Elizabeth A. Woodson 1922 Professor of Religion; it will take place on Monday, April 9.

Contact: Marti Hobbes, mhobbes@smith.edu

March 21, 2001