Henry Petroski (February 6, 1942 – June 14, 2023) was an American engineer specializing in failure analysis. A professor both of civil engineering and history at Duke University, he was also a prolific author. Petroski wrote over a dozen books – beginning with To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1985) and including a number of titles detailing the industrial design history of common, everyday objects, such as pencils, paper clips, toothpicks, and silverware. His first book was made into the film When Engineering Fails. He was a frequent lecturer and a columnist for the magazines American Scientist and Prism.

Life and education

Petroski was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Park Slope and Cambria Heights, Queens. In 1963, he received his bachelor's degree from Manhattan College. He graduated with his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1968.

Career

Before beginning his work at Duke in 1980, Petroski worked at the University of Texas at Austin from 1968–74 and for the Argonne National Laboratory from 1975–80. Petroski was the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. In 2004, Petroski was appointed to the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and was reappointed in 2008. Petroski had received honorary degrees from Clarkson University, Trinity College, Valparaiso University and Manhattan College. He was registered professional engineer in Texas, a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Engineering. Petroski was honored with the 2014 John P. McGovern Award for Science. Petroski died from cancer in Durham, North Carolina on June 14, 2023, at the age of 81.

Published works

Awards and honors