ODU’s Noor Delivers Keynote Address at NAFEMS Conference in Washington
October 02, 2012
Ahmed Noor, Old Dominion University's William E. Lobeck Professor of Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Engineering, spoke recently at a conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by NAFEMS, the premier global organization dedicated to the advancement and improvement of engineering simulation.
His Sept. 11 lecture, titled "Pathway to Future Virtual Product Creation in the Coming Intelligence/Convergence Era," was the keynote address of the Engineering Simulation: A 2020 Vision of the Future conference.
Noor, whose work in advanced engineering environments has garnered worldwide acclaim, identified in his address some of the characteristics of the world's forthcoming intelligence and convergence era, where future complex adaptive systems will have implications for virtual product creation in myriad ways.
In his address, Noor described the need to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations among engineers, researchers, scientists, software developers and other stakeholders, working on the development and applications of future complex adaptive systems.
He argued that the new interdisciplinary fields will yield critical advances in engineering practice, and help in addressing future challenges in a broad array of sectors - from manufacturing to energy, transportation, climate and health care.
At ODU's Center for Advanced Engineering Environments in Newport News, Noor and his colleagues demonstrate through immersive, interactive simulations how creativity and innovation will be stimulated, accelerating the development of the skilled workforce needed for this new era.
NAFEMS, acronym for the National Agency for Finite Element Methods and Standards, was founded as a special interest group in 1983 to provide an independent, international authority on the use of the computer modeling and simulation methods and tools as vital components of the product development process.
NAFEMS is the only worldwide independent association dedicated to this technology.
The Sept. 11-12 conference in Washington, D.C., brought together leading visionaries, developers and practitioners of computer-aided, engineering-related technologies and business processes to share relevant trends and roadmaps, to explore common themes and to address issues in an open forum.