The ancient Inca built a complex system of roads that span some 20,000 miles and range in altitude from sea level to 14,000 feet, all without the benefit of special tools or even a formal writing system.

Dr. David Rempel led a team of researchers from the University of California in San Francisco and Berkeley that developed an 'inverted' drill press.

Following Hurricane Katrina’s 2005 attack on New Orleans, the best minds in the international water-resources industry began seeking innovative ways to rebuild the city’s storm-surge defenses.

While a penniless college student in Texas, Hong Kong native Dennis C.K. Poon’s first gig in the U.S. paid $2 an hour.

Gary Fore, a now retired vice president of the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA), Lanham, Md., leads a voluntary partnership of asphalt-paving industry organizations that is researching and recommending ways to cut down the amount of silica dust generated by asphalt-milling machines in advance of federal safety and health regulations.

Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure.