• Question: Who is your favourite engineer (you can NOT choose yourself.)

    Asked by 873arth22 to Zach, Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Todd on 7 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by devvo goat, lucy.
    • Photo: Zach Welshman

      Zach Welshman answered on 7 Mar 2017:

      Elon Musk is my favourite ‘engineer’ he is actually a physicist by background, but he leads and communicates technical issues with his engineering teams. His contributions towards electric cars with Tesla, his advances with SpaceX and Solar City have been extraordinary.

    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      Probably James Dyson – or Elon Musk. their influence, ideas, innovation and inspiration to others is incredible.

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      I think Alan Turing (although he was a computer scientist) is probably one of the most important engineers of the last century, without him modern computing would not be what ti is today!

    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 10 Mar 2017:

      Hi Arth,

      Without a cast of doubt, Leonardo Da Vinci. His engineering, scientific and art advancements are something out of this world!

Comments

  • Photo: Ana

    Ana commented on :

    I am not sure I have a favourite but I quite admire the work from Hugh Herr.
    He is a double amputee himself (under the knee) and he has turned an unfortunately event (the amputation) into something great, creating an amazing powered foot that he wears himself in both legs.
    He works for MIT and has a fantastic team of research behind that create amazing inventions in for the Biomecatronics field and great advances for Prosthetics.

    Great work towards improving human rehabilitation.

    You can see here some examples: http://biomech.media.mit.edu/#/

  • Photo: Daniel

    Daniel commented on :

    James Dyson for me – mainly for his input back into science and research, but also because of his inventions and engineering feats.
    Otherwise, it’d have to be Elon Musk (but he’s already been chosen!)

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    Ana got there first and mentioned Hugh Herr, I think his positive attitude is very inspiring. He is particularly personally inspiring for me since I broke two bones in my leg (super painful) a while ago and reading about how he recovered from his accident and has achieved great things as a result really helped me get through my own challenges.

    There is also quite a famous biomedical engineer called Robert Langer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_S._Langer) who also works at MIT like Hugh Herr. Robert Langer came up with the idea of tissue engineering, which has become a massive field. His work is read by a lot of engineers, in fact 217580 people have read his research and then cited it (which means they have mentioned his work in their own studies).