ONCE YOU’VE EXPERIENCED A MAJOR HURRICANE, you’re always on alert for the next big one. I’ve seen two since I first moved to Houston almost 20 years ago: Ike in 2008 and Harvey in 2017. Preparation made a huge difference—although I will admit that having three kids under age 5 during Harvey made that recovery just a little bit trickier.
Immediately after Ike, Houston was abuzz with discussions on how to prevent such disastrous impacts again, the most notable solution being the “Ike Dike.” This coastal barrier is designed to protect the Houston region from devastating storm surge. But progress has been slow thanks to a combination of factors from its staggering cost to prolonged timeline. Last I saw, it was around $57 billion across 20 years. The Ike Dike has actually been authorized and a final feasibility report and environmental impact statement came out back in 2021. Perhaps it will get off the ground eventually.
One city that is making progress in its mission to limit the impacts of the next major storm is New York City. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused about $19 billion in damage to the city alone and served as a wake-up call for the need to protect its 520 miles of waterfront from another record-breaking storm surge. As Lina Zeldovich wrote in “How the Big U Will Protect the Big Apple,” the solution is a continuous waterfront network of berms, levees, and floodgates.
“One of the central problems to solve when you’re engineering a flood protection system is how do you maintain a functional city while trying to create the most efficient alignment protection line?” former BIG project lead Simon David told Zeldovich.
The experts and engineers driving solutions such as this will come from all corners of the globe. Without a doubt, one country that is making its mark with remarkable numbers of newly trained engineers each year is India. A recent estimate published in the Times of India reported that number was around 1.5 million a year, far outpacing the United States, which is at around 141,000 a year.
But as Poornima Apte reported in this month’s cover story, “India Rising,” there are multiple challenges that lie ahead as the country sets its sight on establishing a bigger presence on the global stage.
Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 Orbital Adjustment Module receives some adjustments. The startup is one of India’s leading space-launch vehicle design and construction companies. Photo: Skyroot Aerospace
While India is gifted with a large population, skilled talent, and low labor costs, ASME India’s President Madhukar Sharma told Apte that it’s also marred by low productivity and low-tech automation, especially when compared to China. But with vast reserves of engineering talent and a rich startup ecosystem, India won’t be behind for long. I strongly recommend Apte’s exploration into the country’s achievements and challenges that lie ahead.
Some of the other standout stories in this issue include a look at how a research team is 3D printing insulation structures using wheat straw fibers, a more economical way to make a coiled polymer that self-expands to become insulation, and a startup that is betting on millimeter wave drilling to make geothermal energy a global power source.
ASME’s Video Production Team recently spent some time with Avride, a company with a fleet of autonomous delivery robots that is working with GrubHub and UberEats to make deliveries in cities such as Austin, Dallas, and Jersey City. And we also have a profile on Dalia Ramos Guerra, who is breaking barriers as a Latina engineer in the fastest sport in the world, Formula 1. There are some new podcasts highlighted in the right column of this page as well, so please have a listen.
There are more exciting stories in the works for the end of 2025 and moving into 2026. But if there’s anything that you think we should be covering or you want to share some thoughts, please don’t hesitate to write. You can reach us at MEMAG@asme.org. Don’t forget to use the subject line “Letters” to make sure we receive it.
—Louise Poirier, managing editor
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