Engineering conferences in November 2011

Ever hemmed and hawed over whether to attend a sort-of appealing conference in your industry? You weigh the pros and cons, look at your calendar, then conclude, "Hey, it can't hurt to try, right?" Nobody has ever hurt themselves attending an engineering conference -- at least not to our knowledge -- but attending such conferences has led to many people gaining valuable knowledge and acquiring numerous connections. So, what do you have to lose?

Here are a few notable engineering conferences around the lower 48 states coming up in November:

Conference: IASTED International Conference Series

Location: Pittsburgh, Penn.

Date: November 7-9

This year will mark the sixth annual international conference held by IASTED, the International Association of Science and Technology for Development. IASTED, a non-profit organization that has promoted cultural and economic advancement since its creation in 1977, hosts this conference that features five different sub-topics: biomechanics, robotics, computational intelligence and bioinformatics, power and energy systems and applications, and finally modeling, simulation and identification.

A myriad of topics will be covered, including gait and motion analysis, the musculoskeletal system, energy economics, medical instrument design, and many, many more. Many respected professors will be in attendance and leading discussions, hailing from fine American universities such as Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University and Cornell University, as well as international institutions such as the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary, and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa.

Conference: Industrial Sustainability Seminar

Location: Chicago, Ill.

Date: November 9

The Industrial Sustainability Seminar is a one-day event hosted by Antimony Green, an audit and advisory firm that specializes in the engineering and science of renewable energy, environmental accountability and corporate sustainability. The seminar will be led by Antimony Green principal partner Steven Olmsted, an expert in the chemistry and environmental management of hazardous materials and hazardous waste management.

Olmsted will lead a discussion centered on industrial ecology, renewable energy, sustainability fields and manufacturing, as they pertain to business, engineering and regulatory endeavors. Specifically, methods to operate with minimal greenhouse gas emissions will be explored. Antimony Green will be hosting another such seminar four months later, but given that the March seminar will take place in South Africa, November's Chicago location is probably a more realistic travel destination (at least for U.S. engineers).

Conference: IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security

Location: Boston, Mass.

Date: November 15-17

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers will host this conference for the 11th year in the greater Boston area. Over the past decade of its existence, this conference has earned a reputation for congregating science and technology leaders from around the globe. These experts will get together to discuss the challenges created by the innovation gaps in homeland security technology across the world. Topics that will be touched upon include cyber security, land and maritime border security, attack and disaster preparation, recovery, response, and finally biometrics, forensics and physical security.

This year's speakers include Mark S. Borkowski, the assistant commissioner in the Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Major General Joseph C. Carter, the adjutant general at the Massachusetts National Guard, and Daniel M. Cotter, the chief technology officer in the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Homeland Security.