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ECL’s recent Beyond Disruption summit featured an exploration of the disruptions being experienced by the engineering community, the impact of these disruptions, and the responses needed from the engineering community. This “Voices from ECL” series will feature interviews with several of the attendees at the summit.

Part 4

Rochelle Grayson is the founder of Mosaic Accelerator and co-founder of Circles of AI. She emphasized that with the rapid acceleration of AI, it is critical that AI is integrated into engineering systems in ways that retain the judgment of engineers. Rochelle stated that incorporating emerging technologies into engineering is not new and that our traditional sense of cautious skepticism will be an advantage as we incorporate AI.

Rochelle also offered her thoughts on engineering education, highlighting the difficulty of preparing students for a future that we do not understand. She emphasized the importance of critical thinking skills and human connection skills as supplements to traditional problem-solving skills. She stressed the importance of highlighting the whole package of what it means to be an engineer beyond just the technical side.

Finally, Rochelle noted that the engineering community can enhance its public reputation and public presence by developing communication skills that incorporate story telling.

The full interview with Rochelle is available at this link.

Part 3

Dr. Jenna Carpenter is Founding Dean of Engineering at Campbell University and a Past President of ASEE. She outlined the major challenges facing higher education.

• Declining population, declining interest in college, and declining enrollment, all of which are impacting the ability to attract students and threatening the financial model of universities.
• Attracting a broader spectrum of the population of potential students into engineering.
• Undermining of federal funding for research which will ultimately impact innovation.
• Fewer graduate students due to the crackdown on immigration.
• Concerns around the best uses of AI in education.

Dr. Carpenter sees an opportunity for leadership from the engineering community as the voice of reason around scientific issues. The engineering community will need to step up to capitalize on this opportunity and will need to overcome the negative influences of social media.

The full interview with Dr. Carpenter is available at this link.

Part 2

Melyssa Hartzell is a Principal at Martin/Martin Inc. in Lakewood, CO and has participated in several ECL summits. Melyssa highlighted…

• Talent and workforce challenges in the engineering community that are creating competition for candidates and an accelerated career path that sometimes sacrifices knowledge transfer between generations.
• Positive aspects of disruption, particularly the opportunity for the engineering community to shift to a leadership role on important issues such as policy and funding.
• ECL’s approach that fosters broad, system-wide thinking as opposed to the normal project focus of day-to-day work.

The full interview with Melyssa is available at this link.

Part 1

Jerry Buckwalter was formerly the Chief Innovation Officer at ASCE and now serves as International Director of Innovation for the Atlas Initiative for Resilient Infrastructure. Highlights from Jerry’s thoughts included…

• AI as a key disruptor.
• Lack of agility in the engineering community that hampers our ability to deal with change.
• Need for engineers to “broaden their aperture” as problem solvers.
• Stepping up to our traditional role as stewards of technology with new technologies like AI.
• Recognizing the leadership opportunity to tackle bigger issues where our voice has been missing.
• Learning to communicate in different ways, incorporating “story telling.”

Jerry also highlighted how ECL’s approach to the future of engineering offers a different thought process, one that is focused on questioning whether the things we have always done are the right thing or can be done in a different way.

You can hear the full interview with Jerry at this link.

Engineering Change Lab – USA seeks to develop strategic-thinking, future-focused leaders across the engineering community. At our recent Beyond Disruption summit, several of our speakers and participants were interviewed regarding their perspectives on the discussions at the summit and on the work of ECL.

• Rochelle Grayson, Mosaic Accelerator, discussed the importance of AI integration in engineering organizations.
• Melyssa Hartzell, Martin & Martin described her view that the engineering community needs to take on leadership in driving policy and funding decisions.
• Jenna Carpenter, Campbell University, discussed dealing with constraints during this time of disruption.
• Jerry Buckwalter, Atlas Initiative for Critical Infrastructure, stated his view that ECL supplies a thought process absent in the engineering community.
• Gary Bertoline, Purdue University, described the potential of engineering to create positive change in the world.

You can see a video summary of these interviews at this link. In the future, we hope to publish extended versions of these interviews.

Join us as we seek to elevate the contributions of the engineering community to the challenges we face in the world.

Summit Wrap-Up, Part 3

In 1965 Alvin Toffler coined the term “Future Shock” to describe the shattering stress and disorientation induced in individuals, organizations, and communities by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Our observation, leading into the Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) Beyond Disruption Summit, is that 2025 has been a year of accelerating, disruptive change leaving people and institutions unmoored, at risk, and clearly suffering from Future Shock “Squared”.

75 years ago, the behavioral scientist Kurt Lewin articulated a simple, but powerful theory of change for social systems. He theorized that to change a social system you must go through three stages: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. Unfreezing involves preparing people for the transition by breaking down existing mindsets and behaviors that normally act as barriers to change (think bootcamp experiences in the military). The change stage introduces new processes, mindsets, and behaviors. Finally, during refreezing the system stabilizes and the change is embedded into the culture of the social system.

The Future Shock of 2025, brought about by governmental actions and the explosive growth of AI, represents an unfreezing moment for the engineering community. New possibilities as well as desired changes that have been inhibited by the frozen conditions and the inertia of the existing social system may now be possible — provided we act strategically and with urgency before the situation freezes once again.

Clearly, this is a time for imagining a new vision, transcending goals, and robust strategies that could allow the engineering community to take a leadership role in society and become, once again, the fundamental driver of economic growth and prosperity for the country.

ECL’s summit, convened in Austin, Texas in November 2025 gathered a group of engineering leaders, students, and associated stakeholders to engage in this type of strategic thinking effort on behalf of the engineering community. The primary objectives of this summit were to demonstrate both the potential value of and urgent need for engaging in this type of strategy work across the engineering community at this critical juncture in time.

… Read More

Summit Wrap-Up, Part 2

For this summit, we asked six thought leaders to play the role of “evocateur,” to help call forth and breathe life into our collective imagining of a future vision, goals, and strategies for the engineering community. A summary of those evocations as well as perspectives shared by the five members of our student panel are provided below.

Ed Finn, Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University

Ed Finn evoked the power of storytelling, image-based worldbuilding, and speculative fiction to inspire collective imagination. Drawing on a recent article, “Step Into the Free and Infinite Laboratory of the Mind,” (https://issues.org/science-fiction-policy-tool-finn/), Finn observed that collaborative narratives, such as good science fiction, can play a primary role in helping science and society reach beyond current configurations toward positive transformational futures.

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Summit Wrap-Up, Part 1

Imagine waking up on a Spring morning in 2046. Over the last two decades, the U.S. has experienced a sustained period of technological progress, rapid economic growth, social prosperity, and environmental stewardship.

Central to the achievement of this abundant future has been the engineering community. Through their commitments, actions, and achievements the engineering community has emerged as the pre-eminent driver of economic growth and abundance in the 21^st Century.

Looking back to 2025, the disruptive change and “future shock” experienced across the country due to governmental actions and the explosive growth of AI that year constituted, in the words of social scientist Kurt Lewin, an “unfreezing” moment. Previously frozen systems, policies, ways of doing things, and attitudes were suddenly tractable and new possibilities for positive futures emerged.

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Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) is committed to including students in our discussions of the future of engineering. To support that goal, we have launched a campaign to raise scholarship funds to support student attendance at our fall summit, Beyond Disruption: Pioneering a New Path for the Engineering Community.

The summit will explore the changing landscape that has emerged in 2025 and imagine a new vision and path forward for the engineering community. Including the voice of students will enhance and complete the discussions at the summit. Now is the time for the engineering community to take a clear-eyed look at today’s realities and take the lead in forging a new path.

Please consider donating by visiting our GoFundMe page at this link.

Our goal for the campaign is to raise $15,000 to support the attendance of ten students at the summit. We appreciate our early donors who have helped us exceed $3,000 in donations so far. Help us continue this momentum and support additional students.

Every donation, no matter the size, will help students gain critical insights and network with leaders, shaping their future as stewards of technology and society. Please consider using the Share button on our GoFundMe site to connect with your industry associates!

Students who are interested in this opportunity should reach out to Mike McMeekin, ECL Executive Director ([email protected]) before October 3, 2025.

Learn more and register