From ancient Roman aqueducts to the modern-day automobile, feats of engineering have shaped the way we live. But the complexity of life today calls for greater global collaboration. A new annual program helps future engineers broaden their horizons and build important international contacts.

Engineering for the Americas, a partnership between the University of Miami and the University of Rochester, brings top engineering students from these institutions together with their counterparts at institutions in Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean for two one-week sessions per year.

“I am learning about leadership and how research is done in the United States. It’s not the same as in Argentina,” says Ignacio Rodriguez, a senior-year computer engineering major from Universidad Austral who attended the program’s inaugural session at the University of Miami in January.

GPA, student leadership activities, and an essay are the criteria UM used to select its ten participants, explains Abraham Varghese, M.S.I.E. ’95, assistant provost for international affairs. They were among 36 students who attended lectures by UM faculty as well as luminaries like Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez; UM life trustee Phillip Frost, M.D.; Paul Horn, senior vice president and director of research for IBM; and Michael Manyak, M.D., vice president for medical affairs at Cytogen Corporation.

“The program has three distinct goals,” says Thomas J. LeBlanc, UM executive vice president and provost, who oversees the program along with M. Lewis Temares, dean of the College of Engineering. “First, we want our engineering students to have an international experience. Second, we want to expose them to topics outside of the traditional curriculum, such as entrepreneurship and intellectual property management. Third, we want to help create and sustain a professional network across the Americas.”

The second Engineering for the Americas session will take place in June at the University of Rochester. In the interim, participants are completing health care-related engineering projects that encourage them to work “internationally, online, and on a deadline,” Varghese says.