Celebrating the Life of Columbia Professor Stephen Unger

Unger obtained his bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1952 from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York, now the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He went on to earn a grasp’s diploma and Ph.D. in EE from MIT in 1953 and 1957, respectively.

He joined the technical employees at Bell Labs in Whippany, N.J. While there, he led the staff that developed software program instruments that supported the first digital phone switching system.

In 1961 Unger left Bell Labs and joined Columbia, the place he taught programs in digital methods, software program, and pc concept. He retired in 2005.

Throughout his profession, he consulted for expertise firms together with Bell Labs and IBM.

Unger was devoted to selling ethics in engineering. He revealed three books on the subject, together with Controlling Technology: Ethics and the Responsible Engineer. He wrote a number of papers on ethics and expertise, in addition to pc science, and he penned articles for IEEE Technology and Society Magazine and The Institute.

Unger’s private weblog, “Ends and Means,” addressed moral questions surrounding schooling, digital voting, robotics, and different matters.

Guidance for engineers on moral points

In addition to his writing, Unger utilized his ardour for ethics to his volunteer work with IEEE. In 1969 he helped to discovered the Committee on Social Responsibility in Engineering, a company of engineers who have been involved about the methods expertise was getting used. The committee was renamed the IEEE Technical Activities Board Committee on Social Implication of Technology three years later. Unger served as its vice chairman in 1980.

In 1982 the committee was granted society standing as the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. It investigates the environmental, financial, well being, and security implications of expertise. Unger served as the society’s 1985–1986 president.

“One of the things that he was most proud of was his role in creating the Society [on] Social Implications of Technology,” Unger’s son Donald says.

He additionally helped set up the IEEE SSIT’s first award, the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest. It acknowledges people who take motion to profit the public, typically at the danger of their very own careers and reputations.

Unger served on the IEEE Board of Directors and on IEEE ethics committees. He fought for years to determine and keep assist for moral conduct by IEEE members, together with an IEEE ethics hotline.

He was a member of the IEEE Ethics and Member Conduct Committee from 1995 to 1998 and served as its chair in 1997 and 1998. The committee was established to self-discipline members for unethical conduct and to offer moral assist in issues affecting a member’s employment.

Unger performed a principal position in the improvement of the unique IEEE Code of Ethics in 1974 and helped replace it in 1990.
He served on the IEEE Technical Activities Board, the Publication Services and Products Board, and the Educational Activities Board.

He obtained a number of awards together with the 2000 IEEE Millennium Medal, the 1987 IEEE-USA Robert S. Walleigh Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award, and the 1984 IEEE Centennial Medal.