Energy Daily: Engineers bring a critical perspective to the economic models and mathematical predictions that are used to influence public policy, says Iowa State mechanical engineer W. Ross Morrow. "With these quantitative models, people in policy and economics tend to take them at their word," said Morrow, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering with a courtesy appointment in economics. "Engineers bring a great skepticism about what the models say. They ask, 'What evidence is the model based on?'"Morrow, who's finishing his first year at Iowa State, knows what he's talking about. He's building a research career on improving large-scale computer models of engineering and economic systems. He's focusing on energy and environmental issues that involve government, corporations, technology and consumers.
As a doctoral student at the University of Michigan, Morrow developed new theories and numerical methods to analyze the government policies regulating greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on the auto industry's design and pricing decisions….When their report was released in March, it made The New York Times' Dot Earth blog ("Fuel taxes must rise, Harvard researchers say"), Rush Limbaugh's radio show ("Will America stand for $7 a gallon?") and an interview on Bloomberg Television.
As an Iowa State faculty member, he's continuing to look at numerical methods for modeling engineering and economic systems. He's working to improve how models handle something as complex and uncertain as the energy industry. How do models, for example, account for uncertainties about the future of oil reserves and advances in vehicle technology? He also wants to develop new technical solutions to building large-scale, complex models that take into account engineering technology and market behavior….
A Georges Roux illustration for Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island, 1874
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