NURTURING RESILIENCE THROUGH THE PANDEMIC
THIRD CONFERENCE OF ROMANIAN AMERICAN PROFESSIONALS
June 5th 2021
Panel on promoting mentoring and research achievements in STEM and IT:
The second presenter in the panel was Prof. Bogdan I. Epureanu, the Director of the U.S. Army Automotive Research Center of Excellence and Editor in Chief of ASME Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics at University of Michigan. He commenced by remarking about the legendary status of Prof. Bejan amongst Romanian origin Engineering professors in the United State because of his accomplishments in our understanding of thermodynamics and its relevance to our understanding of life itself. Personally, he acknowledged Prof. Bejan role as a mentor and a cornerstone in his career. Prof. Epureanu attested to Prof. Bejan’s efforts in assisting a large community of talented Romanians the decades, many of whom now being successful professors at prestigious American universities. The lasting impact rests in the set of values Prof. Bejan articulates and embodies, inspiring the mentee to enact the same, to strive and apply the same in their own careers. Prof. Epureanu’s research is focused on understanding change and adaptation of engineered and natural systems, particularly how knowledge on nonlinear systems can be brought to bear in predicting catastrophic or epidemiological tipping points, forecasting pandemics and echo-system changes while using engineering methods and applied mathematics. He argued that is not enough to understand the biophysics of a disease or the chemo-mechanical processes, but we need to also understand human behavior. Tackling, understanding, designing system interactions requires a convergence of disciplines with relevant perspectives. It takes a community to tackle grand societal changes. In tackling social adaptation, it takes a community to raise a leader and so it is important to build that community that enables people to succeed.