As old and new technologies continue to shape and reshape daily lives, questions about who builds them and who bears their consequences continue to be urgent. In an upcoming Honors Mic lecture, Adelheid Voskuhl, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading scholar in the history of science and technology, will explore how engineers, then and now, have shaped not just machines but society itself. 

“At key moments in history—certainly today, but also during World War II and the Cold War—engineers have actively participated in conversations about the ‘consequences’ of technology,” Voskuhl said.  

The lecture will take place at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, in GEAR 26. It is free and open to the campus and broader Northwest Arkansas community. 

Focusing on the period between 1880 and 1930, when engineering emerged as a profession in the U.S. and around the globe, Voskuhl’s Mic lecture will trace how engineers organized themselves into institutions, defined professional ethics and claimed a public voice in the face of sweeping social and technological change. These early efforts still resonate today, as engineers continue to play a central role in debates over policy, ethics and the impact of innovation. 

Before joining the University of Pennsylvania, Voskuhl was a fellow in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study and an assistant and then associate professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the history of technology from the early modern period to the present, with broader interests in the philosophy of technology, the Enlightenment, and modern European intellectual and cultural history. Her book Androids in the Enlightenment: Mechanics, Artisans, and Cultures of the Self (University of Chicago Press, 2013) won the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History from the American Philosophical Society in 2014.. 

“I try to offer students those moments of aha,” she added. “Take innovation, for example. We love that word, but you don’t really know if something is innovative unless you understand what came before it. What felt groundbreaking 100 years ago, like the shift from steam to electric power, was only understood as innovation because people knew what they were leaving behind. Often, what we call new is actually very old.” 

The lecture will also reflect on the continuing evolution of the profession, with a look at the role engineers have played closer to home, across Arkansas and the American South, and how their work in agriculture, transportation and education continues to shape society. Following the presentation, Voskuhl will invite conversation about what lessons today’s rapidly changing technological world might draw from the past. 

“No matter what we do, we’re engaging with history,” Voskuhl said. “Engineers study old machine designs. Mathematicians study equations written long ago. Chefs look to how people prepared food in times of scarcity and affluence. We may as well become systematic about it, and that’s where history as a discipline can help.”