Joseph J. Cunningham, an engineering historian and an authority on New York City's electrical power systems, said that this particular substation was one of seven buildings that provided power to the elevated trains operated by the Manhattan Railway Company on Second, Third, Sixth and Ninth Avenues.
The design team includes perspectives from multiple disciplines that include science, engineering, mathematics, historians, and pedagogical experts.
The adoption by scientists in 2015 of an Asilomar-like script for discussing genetic engineering offers historians the opportunity to analyze the adjustments that have been made since 1975, and to identify the blind spots that remain in public engagement.
"It wasn't until Ruge reinvented it that the world realized what had been done," said Peter K. Stein, an engineering consultant and historian of metrology in Phoenix.
"The House and Senate are like a liberal arts school and an engineering school," Donald A. Ritchie, associate historian of the Senate, said.
"It's a great source of knowledge — and humbling, too — sometimes that's necessary," said Henry Petroski, a historian of engineering at Duke University and author of "Success Through Failure," a 2006 book.
Mr. Burks was an important contributor to the theoretical side of computer science rather than the engineering side, said William Aspray, a historian at Indiana University.
A few other scholars have been studying and writing along similar lines, Dr. Roland noted, citing Dr. John G. Landels, a British historian whose book, "Engineering in the Ancient World," was reissued in 2000 by the University of California Press.
Yet Hesa figures persistently show science, maths and engineering graduates finding fewer jobs than historians, lawyers and educators.
Historians generally credit the clever engineering and design concepts of Sir Alec Issigonis of the British Motor Corporation.
