Iceland’s erupting volcano and the breadth of global disruption it caused last spring is a clear indication of “just how connected the world is,” says Lester Gerhardt, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.
He would know. Gerhardt leads global study programs at the school and is a co-founder and chairman of the New York City-based Global Engineering Education Exchange. The group of nearly 80 U.S. and overseas engineering schools has fostered global study since the mid-1990s.