There are four special sessions for MECC 2021:


    Industry-Led Research Roadmap Panel on Control Engineering in the Age of AI, 12:55-14:00 PM Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.
    More details here; you may download the MathWorks Tutorial Materials here.


    The Impact of Inclusivity on Innovation, 4:05PM – 5:00 PM Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.
    More details here.

    Organizer: Dr. Cynthia Hipwell
    Abstract: Darwin spent the first two chapters of On the Origin of the Species discussing the incredible variety of species and variety of individuals within the species. Diversity is the foundation of nature’s innovation process: evolution and natural selection. Similarly, innovation researchers have shown that diverse teams produce more creative solutions, teams that include women show greater collective intelligence than those without, and diverse leadership teams improve the bottom line. Inclusion is the process by which an environment is created in which diverse team members feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work and freely contributing their ideas and talents to the team. It is critical to reap the full benefit of this diversity on innovation. Dr. Hipwell will highlight some of the research into diversity and innovation, managing for creativity and innovation, and relate it to some of her own experiences creating inclusive and innovative teams.
    Dr. Cynthia Hipwell has been working in the area of technology development based upon nanoscale phenomena for over 20 years. She received her B.S.M.E. from Rice University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, she went to work at Seagate Technology’s Recording Head Division in Bloomington, Minnesota to develop test equipment to characterize the interface between the head and the disk in hard disk drives. During her time at Seagate, Dr. Hipwell held various individual and leadership positions in the areas of reliability, product development, and advanced mechanical and electrical technology development. In these various roles, she established new business processes and an organizational culture that focused on developing innovative solutions from root cause understanding, improved pace of learning, and discipline in experimentation and configuration management. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for her leadership in the development of technologies to enable areal density and reliability increases in hard disk drives and was recently elected a National Academy of Inventors Fellow. Dr. Hipwell is currently the Oscar S. Wyatt, Jr. ’45 Chair II at Texas A&M University, teaching classes on innovation and technology development as well as leading the INVENT Lab (INnoVation tools and Entrepreneurial New Technology).

    An Overview of Modeling, Estimation, and Control Funding Opportunities at NSF, 4:05PM – 5:00 PM Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021.
    More details here.


    Underrepresented Stories in Controls & Robotics Industry, 12:55-14:00 PM Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021.
    More details here.