Chemical engineering professor and sustainable engineering program director Randy Weinstein has been a lifelong fan of Dr. Seuss, invoking the erstwhile educator in his college admissions essay. Weinstein, a winner of the 2010 Lindback Award for Teaching Excellence and the 2008 Innovative Teaching Award at Villanova, traces the origin of the word "nerd" back to the 1950 Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo at the TEDxVillanovaU event at Villanova University on March 28.

 

Weinstein, a regular on community theater stages throughout the region, gives a compelling argument for changing the perception of engineers and creating more of them.

 

 

Villanova grad students Alyssa Fischer and Wairimu Mwangi are developing a framework for quantifying social and economic impact of sustainability projects, a necessary metric they related to energy and transportation issues the U.S. is untangling. The pair talks about the corn-ethanol rush and how it did not consider all stakeholders, particularly those in Mexico who rely on corn for income and sustenance.