ASCE joined more than 500 other science and engineering organizations in the United States at the 2nd USA Science and Engineering Festival, held in Washington, D.C., at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center April 28–29. This year part of the funding for ASCE’s educational outreach exhibit and its sponsorship of the festival came from the ASCE Foundation.
Building on the success of its two predecessors, the 2012 Critical Infrastructure Symposium, held in Arlington, Virginia, April 23–24, brought together approximately 150 engineering professionals, students, educators, security and risk specialists, and government officials to discuss ways of developing technologies and strategies for protecting infrastructure and the people who use it.
Testifying on April 18 before the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, James A. Rossberg, P.E., M.ASCE, the Society’s managing director of engineering programs, said that efforts by the administration and Congress to address the growing investment deficit in waterways infrastructure have largely been ineffectual because of political considerations that give precedence to deficit reduction and tax cuts over the badly needed restoration of critical infrastructure.
ASCE’s immediate past president, Kathy J. Caldwell, P.E., F.ASCE, was invited to the White House on April 26, along with 11 other individuals, to meet with President Obama in connection with the first anniversary of the White House Champions of Change program.