Engineers and their collaborators in the United States who promote social justice, human rights, peace, and environmental protection have until September 30 to apply or nominate someone for The Constellation Prize, which celebrates individuals in the field of engineering who look beyond the technical dimensions of their work to consider the social and environmental justice impacts their work might hold.
This new prize was launched with the help of two faculty members from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York: Daniel Lander, a lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn, a lecturer in the Department of Science and Technology Studies.
“Engineers hold so much power,” said Lander. “We are the ones who have created the technology that makes all of the systems affording humans our advanced way of life. But engineers don’t always consider the wide-ranging consequences of what we design. What we hope to do with The Constellation Prize is to reward those who find a way to build social value into the engineering practice.”
The Constellation Prize grew from a conversation the two had with Darshan Mukesh Arvinda Karwat of Arizona State University, one of their speakers at a yearlong series at Rensselaer about the social and environmental impacts of human activities.
“Inequality and injustice are hardwired into current models of technological design and technical work, even in the United States, one of the most technologically advanced and resource-rich nations on Earth,” Karwat has written.
“However, the onus for change is not only on those who officially make policy—politicians, lawyers, and businesspeople—but also on those who build policy
and create possibilities—engineers. For example, if engineers did not design and build bombs, there would be fewer of them for people to use; engineers can not create the possibilities of mass destruction.”
Karwat joins Lander and Costelloe-Kuhn on the seven-member committee administering the prize, which also includes one Black woman, Katreena Thomas, a Ph.D. student in engineering education and systems design and a master’s student in human systems engineering at Arizona State University.
“As engineers, we are master problem solvers and it is our obligation to use that talent in service of building a world and society centered on peace,” Thomas said. “This prize presents an opportunity to recognize and amplify the accomplishments and work being conducted by engineers that are unfortunately often criticized in the engineering field. Through this prize, we will be able to provide different perspectives within our fields and encourage fellow engineers to recognize their responsibility to society so we can do our part to shape the future of the world we live in.”
The prompts in the nomination form include:
What has this engineer or collaborative effort demonstrated or achieved that serves as a model for creating an engineering profession that promotes the values of environmental protection, social justice, human rights, and/or peace?
How has engineering shaped the outcomes and impact of the work?
What challenging constraints has the engineer or collaborative effort operated in?
In what ways were non-engineering stakeholders involved in shaping the engineering done in this work? If the nominee is an engineer, how did this engineer listen to and elevate the voices of non-engineering stakeholders in shaping their own engineering work?
“I hope this prize will help students, practitioners, policy makers, teachers, activists, and others imagine other possible worlds,” Costelloe-Kuehn said, “and construct a network of engineers and collaborators where we can support each other as we strategize how to compose these worlds.”
For more information and to nominate an engineer or collaborative effort, visit https://www.constellationprize.org/.