Louis L. Bucciarelli

Professor of Engineering and Technology Studies, Emeritus (STS)

Louis Bucciarelli received his B.S. from Cornell University (Mechanical Engineering, 1959) an M.Aero.E from the same institution (1960) and his Ph.D. from MIT (Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1966). He was Director of MIT’s Technology Studies Program, and has been a Curator of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian, held various visiting appointments at the University of Sussex, at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation (Ecole des Mines, Paris), at Delft Technical University, at Denmark’s Institute of Technology, and Cambridge. He has received the Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, has consulted for a wide range of industries, and has helped lead a coalition of engineering schools (ECSEL) in the renovation of undergraduate education.

In engineering, he works on the development of alternative energy and residential energy instrumentation systems. In STS he has moved from studies of 19th century physical science to ethnographic studies of the engineering design process. He is the author of Designing Engineers (MIT Press, 1994); Engineering Philosophy (Delft Univ. Press, IOS Press, 2003; Chinese Translation, 2008); an engineering textbook, Engineering Mechanics for Structures (Dover, 2008).