Environmental Engineer Participates in Leading Global Symposium

For the past several years, Robert Fields, P.E., ENV SP, LEED AP BD+C, associate and senior engineer in New York, has been a leading industry voice on the pressing topic of making our nation’s infrastructure more resilient against the effects of global climate change. This week, Fields will be with like-minded individuals as he joins 60 engineers and thought leaders from the United States and Japan at the Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering (JAFOE) virtual symposium.

This intensive, two-and-a-half-day symposium will address recent developments in engineering technology in four key areas: scaling and challenges in implementing blockchain, mitigating sea level rise, machine learning and AI for mental health, and advances in soft robotics. The event will facilitate international and cross-disciplinary research collaboration and promote the sharing of new techniques and approaches across disparate engineering fields. The goal is to encourage the creation of a trans-Pacific network of world-class engineers.

The JAFOE symposium is sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering in cooperation with the Engineering Academy of Japan. 

Fields will be discussing issues that are also the basis for the forthcoming book, which he co-authored, The Impacts of Future Weather and Climate Extremes on United States’ Infrastructure: Assessing and Prioritizing Adaptation Actions. This publication is sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate, for which Fields serves on the executive committee. The book will be available as an e-book and in print in late September of this year.

“I’m very excited to be participating in this cutting-edge exchange of ideas,” Fields said. “JAFOE represents some of the engineering industry’s brightest and most forward-thinking minds, and I’m honored and humbled that I was invited to be a part of it.”