Park Doing, Ph. D.

Courses By:
Bio:
Print Brochure

Park Doing, Ph. D.

Presents a SunCam continuing education series on the topic of:

Professional Ethics

Contact author at:
pad9@cornell.edu
Cornell Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall, Room 396
607-254-8950

Park Doing received his Ph.D. from the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University in May 2003. During his graduate student career Park had the good fortune of being awarded the Hacker/Mullins Prize from the American Sociological Association Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology and the Mullins Prize from the Society for the Social Study of Science for best graduate student paper for his paper “‘Lab Hands’ and the ‘Scarlet O’: On Models, Identities, and Performances” which was an ethnographic account of technical practice at a modern synchrotron laboratory. The paper was part of his dissertation, titled ‘Velvet Revolutions: Accounting for Epistemic and Political Change at a Modern Physics Laboratory amid the Second Rise of Biology in Synchrotron Science’. The book based on his dissertation,Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron: Physics, Biology, and Change in Science, was published in 2009 by MIT Press.

Park received both his B.S. (’88) and M.Eng. (’93) in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University Space Plasma Physics Group. His Master’s degree project was to design and fabricate a matched filter for the Cornell University Portable Radar Interferometer system. He has worked as a design engineer for NCR corporation in Dayton, Ohio, Ithaca, NY, and Paris, France from 1988 to1991. And, he has worked as a manager and technical staff member at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source from 1992 to1999. In the course of working at NCR and at the lab, he has published several technical papers and been awarded three patents.

In the Bovay Program, Park teaches ENGRG 3600: Ethics in Engineering Practice, co-teaches CEE 4920: Engineers for a Sustainable World, lectures in the ENGRG 1050 introduction to engineering sections, and has taught classes on computing culture, environmental ethics, and the social study of science and engineering. Park’s current research is on the Gulf Coast undersea oil gusher.

Course Title Rating Hours Price

373-The Citicorp Tower: Professional Ethics and Disaster Averted

(4.6) 81 Reviews

1 $22.50

Add Course to Cart

Course Objectives: This continuing education course is written specifically for professional engineers with the objective of relating to and enhancing the practice of engineering.

Course Description:

The first fundamental canon of engineering ethics from the National Society of Professional Engineers directs engineers to “hold paramount the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” In engineering, keeping people safe from harm means doing sound engineering calculations and having a full understanding of the possible real-world scenarios that engineering designs will face. The third fundamental canon states that engineers shall “issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner,” and the fourth holds that the engineers shall, “act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees”. The case of the Citicorp building in New York City raises questions about what kinds of calculations can be expected of an engineer, what kinds of agencies or groups should oversee design calculations, and what kinds of public statements an engineer is responsible to make. In this case, action was taken by engineers who recognized a problem and were able to avoid a possible catastrophe, but statements made to the public did not reflect the true danger of the situation.

This course satisfies one hour of the ethics training requirement for license renewal for the following state engineering boards:
Delaware	3-6 hours required
District of Columbia	1-hour required
Florida	1-hour required
Indiana	1-hour required
Iowa	2-hours required
Louisiana	2-hours required
Maryland	1-hour required
Minnesota	2-hour required
Mississippi	1-hour required
New Jersey	2-hours required
New Mexico	2-hours required
New York	1-hour required
Ohio	2-hours required (rules or ethics)
Texas	1-hour required
Wisconsin	2-hours required

390-Ethics in Design and Oversight: The Case of the Florida International University Bridge Collapse

(4.8) 108 Reviews

1 $22.50

Add Course to Cart

Course Objectives: The course objective is to improve the licensee’s knowledge and understanding of the ethical issues surrounding the collapse of the Florida International University pedestrian overpass of SW 8th Street in Miami on March 15, 2018.

Course Description:

This course is a description of the Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse on March 15, 2018. The bridge collapsed while under construction over a busy motorway resulting in the deaths of six people and serious injuries to another six. Analysis by the National Transportation Safety Board found errors in the design of the bridge, the review of the design, and the response to signs that the bridge was failing. The case serves as a reminder for designers that reviews can be imperfect and a reminder for reviewers that designs can be imperfect. It also highlights the possible dangers of professional distance between the design and construction processes. The course is designed to give course takers evidence from which they can determine how widely distributed accountability for the collapse should be.

This course satisfies one hour of the ethics training requirement for license renewal for the following state engineering boards:
Delaware	3-6 hours required
District of Columbia	1-hour required
Florida	1-hour required
Indiana	1-hour required
Iowa	2-hours required
Louisiana	2-hours required
Maryland	1-hour required
Minnesota	2-hour required
Mississippi	1-hour required
New Jersey	2-hours required
New Mexico	2-hours required
New York	1-hour required
Ohio	2-hours required (rules or ethics)
Texas	1-hour required
Wisconsin	2-hours required

463-The Space Shuttle Challenger Case: Ethics and Engineering Dissent

(5) 36 Reviews

1 $22.50

Add Course to Cart

Course Objectives:

To give students an understanding of their rights and responsibilities in according to the NSPE codes of ethics in situations where their engineering judgment is overruled by their company in circumstances that endanger life or property.
To give students an understanding of the specific circumstances under which legal protections against retaliation for dissent apply.

Course Description:

This case study of one of the most iconic episodes in engineering history is designed to highlight some of the difficulties engineers might encounter should their engineering judgment regarding matters that endanger life or property be overruled by their employer and to give students an understanding of their rights and responsibilities in such circumstances according to the NSPE codes of ethics. The Challenger case was chosen precisely because it is not a clear-cut case of unsafe engineering, thus providing the kind of realistic complexity that engineers face in the course of their professional lives. NASA and the relevant contractor, Morton Thiokol, were adamant both before and after the Challenger failure that proper engineering analysis drove their decision making – that it was not a case of succumbing to outside pressure or weighing political or financial considerations. Students can decide for themselves what they would have done given the public facts of the case. The case also brings out the limited legal support that exists for engineers who might face retaliation from such dissent.

511-Ethics, Competition, Regulation - The Case of the Boeing 737 Max Failures

(4.9) 9 Reviews

1 $22.50

Add Course to Cart

Course Objectives:

To give engineers an understanding of their responsibilities, across different codes of engineering ethics, in situations where the health, safety, and welfare of the public is affected by engineering decisions.
To give engineers an understanding of how recent code of ethics changes have made the engineers’ responsibility for the health, safety, and welfare of the public more explicit.

Course Description:

After Lion Air flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea thirteen minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 29, 2018, Boeing cited pilot error as a likely cause of the tragedy that killed all one 189 people on board its 737 Max aircraft. Post-flight analysis, however, showed an unusual trajectory for the crash. Shortly after takeoff, a series of twenty nosedives started to drive the plane downward, with the pilots recovering each time only to experience another rapid dive as the plane got lower and lower in the sky and crashed. On the recovered flight recorder, pilots could be heard furiously leafing through the technical manual of the airplane as it crashed into the sea. When another 737 Max, Ethiopia Airlines flight 302, crashed with a similar trajectory after taking off from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2018, killing all 149 people on board, the search for a cause beyond pilot error began in earnest. In both cases, an automatic system operating unbeknownst to the flight crews that they had no way of interacting with or turning off had taken control of the airplanes and driven them down, despite pilots’ efforts to save the planes and, indeed, even determine what was happening. How could an autonomous system that pilots could not interact with during flight, nor turn off, come to be installed in widely used aircraft unbeknownst to pilots flying those aircraft—and why did that system fail? What roles did engineers play in the design and certification process? What consequences did engineers, and Boeing as a company, face after the crashes? What do different codes of ethics say about engineering decisions that affect the health, safety, and welfare of the public in such circumstances? Did the engineers involved act appropriately according to the different ethical codes?