4 minute read
ALUMNI STORIES
Seth Pearlman (CE BS ‘78, MS ‘79) has been named a new member of the National Academy of Construction in recognition of his leadership in ground improvement, environmental remediation, and soil investigation.
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Pearlman is the North American CEO and board director of Menard. He is responsible for Menard USA, Menard Canada, Earth Tech (Florida), Farrell Design-Build (California), and ConeTec. Seth joined Menard in 2003. He has served numerous organizations, serving as the president of the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) from 20062008.
Recognized with numerous honors, he received the ASCE Geo-Institute Wallace Hayward Baker Award for achievements in ground improvement in 2020, the ASCE Henry Michel Award for Research in Industry at the OPAL awards dinner in 2015, and alumni service awards from both Carnegie Mellon University and its Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Pearlman is a member of the Moles, ASCE, and the American Concrete Institute. He currently serves on the DFI Scholarship Trust Board, where he helps in establishing funding for university scholarships.
2023 Alumni Awards
Know an alumni you think should be recognized for their accomplishments?
CEE is accepting nominations for the 2023 Alumni Awards:
Distinguished Alumna/us
Outstanding Alumna/us Service
Lt. Col. Christopher K. Raible Distinguished Public Service
Recent Alumna/us Achievement
Please scan for more information or email msenchur@ andrew.cmu.edu
Senchur Steps into CEE Alumni Role
Randi Senchur was recently named
CEE’s Office and Alumni Relations Administrator. She is been with the department for four years.
Senchur says that working with alumni is an exciting opportunity because “alumni are the foundation of CEE. They are part of the community that helps us to develop a new generation of civil and environmental engineers who are socially conscious problem-solvers.”
“Alumni contribute and engage in many ways, including giving department seminars, participating in panels for student organizations, supporting things such as course projects, and through fellowships and student events.”
In her new position, Senchur hopes to restart in-person alumni events that have been halted due to the pandemic. She is hosting virtual Alumni Town Halls in Fall of 2022 and Spring of 2023, and is rebranding the CEE Student and Alumni Networking Group on LinkedIn to be a place where members can network, connect, celebrate, and share with each other.
She is also motivated to continue the successful CEE Undergraduate Mentorship Program, now in its second year. The program matches a CEE alumni mentor with a CEE undergraduate seeking industry and professional experience. “The first year proved to be beneficial and rewarding for both the students and alumni,” she says, adding that she hopes to pair additional student/alumni mentor pairings for this academic year.
She said that her interest in cultivating relationships between students and alumni started when she was an undergrad working in a career center. “I really enjoyed seeing how students could benefit from those interactions with alumni.”
You can contact Randi Senchur with your news and updates at: msenchur@andrew.cmu.edu.
Fighting Energy Poverty Through Carbon-neutral Electricity Distribution
Kwaku Jyamfi (MS '20), chief executive officer at Farm to Flame Energy, is working to produce a low-cost energy solution for people who live in emerging areas of the world. His company creates clean, affordable energy from readilyavailable biomass waste. “This is a low-cost energy solution that can be a primary source of energy or a back-up.”
The company is on track to create renewable on-site electricity at half of the cost of diesel fuel, according to Jyamfi. “The fuel completely combusts so there’s no smoke or odor—and minimal ash.”
The idea came to Jyamfi as an undergraduate student, where he met the company’s cofounder. Together they discussed a process patented by the co-founder’s family—a new way to pulverize agricultural waste. This led to talk about using the waste to power-up developing areas in Africa and India. Jyamfi was especially interested in the implications this could have in providing increased access to clean water— which is dependent upon energy-using filtration systems.
Jyamfi asserts that his company’s technology is more cost-efficient than generators that use solar, due to the high price (and “This is a low-cost low availability) of lithium ion energy solution that can batteries.
be a primary source of energy or a back-up."
“Energy poverty is a problem across the globe,” Jyamfi says. Five years ago, he built a small prototype device on his porch and saw that the idea could work. He adds that his experience at CEE was beneficial in helping him to achieve the goal of launching Farm to Flame Energy. “Professor Emeritus David Dzombak was very supportive of me. I worked full time while double-majoring at CMU.”
Jyamfi adds that he was excited to let his professors know that the prototype he had built near the end of his studies was awarded an EPA grant to be upscaled into a commercial unit. The company launched in 2018 and is now in a public funding campaign that’s fueling future investment and growth. Since its start, Farm to Flame Energy has won five entrepreneurship competitions, was awarded a New Jersey CSIT Seed grant, and secured an energy services contract with Georgia-Pacific, one of the country’s largest biomass electricity providers.
Farm to Flame Energy also caught the attention of The Richard King Mellon Foundation, which chose to invest in response to the company’s technology and its social impact focus. “We plan to stay in Pittsburgh and really want to grow here and provide meaningful jobs,” adds Jyamfi.
Learn more about Kwaku Jyamfi’s carbonneutral electricity distribution company, Farm to Flame Energy,
