The Engineering Commons Podcast

The Engineering Commons brings together hosts Jeff, Carmen, and Adam -- engineers with backgrounds spanning mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and manufacturing -- for roundtable discussions about the practical realities of working as an engineer. Jeff Shelton has over 20 years of experience in machine design, manufacturing operations, and engineering management, and now teaches mechatronics and measurement systems at a Big Ten university. Adam is a civil engineer specializing in roadway construction. Together they tackle topics that cut across disciplines: professional licensing, the role of soft skills in engineering teams, electric vehicle technology, how engineers acquire and transfer knowledge, and what the future of the profession might look like. The show regularly features guest engineers and subject matter experts who bring specialized perspectives on everything from chemical engineering processes to practical applications of engineering principles in the field. Episodes are conversational and unscripted, with the hosts genuinely debating ideas rather than reading from talking points. The cross-disciplinary format is one of the show's real strengths -- a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer often see the same problem very differently, and those contrasts make for interesting listening. Episodes run about 30 to 40 minutes and the back catalog goes deep, with well over a hundred episodes covering a wide range of engineering subjects. The show bills itself as offering practical insights for the engineering crowd, and that tagline fits. It is a podcast made by working engineers for working engineers.