The recipient of this years Branding Leadership Award is a person who will disassemble cellphones, hard drives, lightbulbs, and LED monitors, cuts thermostats from the wall and rips copper pipes from the ceiling of his office, if it means helping the public understand engineering.
His pioneering use of online video and social media, including Facebook, Twitter, iTunes and YouTube, has made him one of the most seen faces of the University, long after he became one of its best voices on public radio on his program “Engineering & Life.”
His presence in his videos is the embodiment of many of the core attributes of the Illinois brand: He is knowledgeable, hardworking, unpretentious, smart, surprising, bold, friendly, and limitless in his ability to share the wonder of engineering.
“Make” magazine called him “a brilliant science-and-technology documentarian” whose “videos should be held up as models of how to present complex technical information visually.” “Wired” magazine called his videos “dazzling,” and “Scientific American’s blog called him “a smart, easygoing everyman with a firm understanding of the science.”
For extending the Illinois brand onto social media, radio, and video, we call him a Branding Leader, although most simply know him as the “Engineer Guy.” Congratulations to Professor Bill Hammack of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, this year’s Branding Leadership Award recipient.
