The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council (now the program units of NASEM). The NAE operates engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. New members are annually elected by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The NAE is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the rest of the National Academies the role of advising the federal government. History The National Academy of Sciences was created by an Act of Incorporation dated March 3, 1863, which was signed by then President of the United States Abraham Lincoln with the purpose to "...investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art..." No reference to engineering was in the original act, the first recognition of any engineering role was with the setup of the Academy's standing committees in 1899. At that time, there were six standing committees: (mathematics and astronomy; physics and engineering; chemistry; geology and paleontology; biology; and anthropology. In 1911, this committee structure was again reorganized into eight committees: biology was separated into botany; zoology and animal morphology; and physiology and pathology; anthropology was renamed anthropology and psychology with the remaining committees including physics and engineering, unchanged. In 1913, George Ellery Hale presented a paper on the occasion of the Academy's 50th anniversary, outlining an expansive future agenda for the Academy. Hale proposed a vision of an Academy that interacted with the "whole range of science", one that actively supported newly recognized disciplines, industrial sciences and the humanities. The proposed creation of sections of medicine and engineering was protested by one member because those professions were "mainly followed for pecuniary gain". Hale's suggestions were not accepted. Nonetheless, in 1915, the Section of Physics and Engineering was recommended to be changed to physics only, and a year later the Academy began planning a separate section of engineering. That same year of 1913, the Academy was requested to investigate the great slide in Culebra Cut late in 1913 which ultimately delayed the opening of the Panama canal by ten months. The study group, commissioned by the United