Pictured above: Dr. Hanson, James Poinsette, Luke Greenwood and Samantha Nystrom at the Annual Spring Awards Ceremony.
Congratulations to the department’s spring award winners! This year’s recipients included seniors Luke Greenwood recipient of the Shelton Hannig Award, James Poinsette awarded the Morris L. Cleverley Award and Samantha Nystrom received the ASCE Alumni Award. Also being recognized was junior Julia McGuire who received the Civil Engineering Faculty Award. In addition, this spring were four seniors received the Indiana Section ASCE Outstanding Student Award: Samantha Nystrom, Sarah Shoemaker, Colin Featherby and Tyrell Cockcroft.
Pictured above: Julia McGuire receiving the Civil Engineering Faculty Award from Dr. Hanson.
Summer 2022 1 CE Echoes Department Newsletter Civil and EngineeringEnvironmentalDepartment Contact: (812) 877 8817 tanner2@rose hulman.edu Faculty John Aidoo Professor & Roland E. Hutchins EndowedChair Kevin Collins VisitingAssociateProfessor James Hanson Professor &DepartmentHead Kyle Kershaw Associate Professor Matt Lovell Associate Professor & Senior Director for the Office of Institutional Research, Planning andAssessment Michelle Marincel Payne AssistantProfessor Jenny Mueller AssociateProfessor Namita Shrestha AssistantProfessor Kevin Sutterer Professor&DepartmentHead Staff Kevin Prosser Technician Angela Tanner AdministrativeAssistant Student News
Summer 2022 2 CE Echoes Department Newsletter • American Structurepoint • ARCO National Construction • CHA Consulting • Cives Steel Company • Civil & Environmental Consultants • DLZ • EMH&T • Frost Engineering, Inc • Janssen & Spaans Engineering • Parsons Corporation • Ryan Homes • Schaefer • Thompson Thrift • Thornton Tomasetti • Wanzek Construction Our Newest Alumni Congratulations to our newest alumni! At commencement we presented 18 diplomas to graduating seniors and hoods to four master’s degree recipients. We also honored three seniors who will be completing their degree shortly. Within one week of graduation, every graduate was placed. Three are pursuing their master’s degree in Structural Engineering here at Rose Hulman. One is pursuing a master’s degree at Stanford University. The graduates headed off to six different states for the following employers: Upcoming Opportunities In late October, Dr. Jim Hanson will be at the ACI Convention in Dallas, Texas. If you live in the area or will be at the convention and would like to get together, please send him an email: hanson@rose hulman.edu
CE Echoes Department Newsletter Engineers Without Borders Engineers Without Borders is a multi-national organization dedicated to improving life for people living in developing countries through sustainable engineering projects. The goal of EWB-RHIT, which has approximately 20 active members, is to work closely with people of different regions to gain valuable engineering and cultural experience as they take on challenging projects.
“When we have all the resources that we do in this country, it’s not really a choice to help others; it’s a necessity,” says Lincoln.
EWB students and community members hard at work on the spring box project to bring clean drinking water to Chaguarloma, Ecuador. This community is in the northwest region of Quito and is home to around 40 families. Those individuals currently walk 3.5 kilometers (approximately two miles) each day just to get water.
Community members discussing project plans with EWB Ecuador
“It’s fascinating being able to work on a project that’s real,” says Lincoln. “A lot of what we do in class is theoretical, with paper and pencil. This project is helping real people. Even with whatever job I get after Rose, I’m not sure it will help people as much as what we’re doing here in Ecuador.”
EWB-RHIT students were responsible for the initial design and construction of the gravity-fed, 8kilometer water pipeline project, including the water disinfection and purification process. Students made three trips to Ecuador to work on the project. During the first trip in August 2018, students conducted a social survey to understand the community needs and conducted water testing. The second trip, which took place in February 2019, students conducted more survey data, especially near the roadway that would connect the water sources to the community. The last trip took place in March 2020, in which Renn was the surveying lead.
David Lincoln, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, is a member of the student chapter. He believes working on this real-life EWB project provided him valuable experience beyond the classroom.
Beginning late 2017, EWB-RHIT worked on a
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Though the group has shifted its focus to other projects, Lincoln believes individuals in the United States who are fortunate to have clean water infrastructure should consider donating to other countries that do not have the same resources.
Summer 2022 4 new role as part of a newly formed engineering analytics team, to start analyzing the data.
CE Echoes Department Newsletter
Alumni Highlights Jessica (Jess) Toth (CE 2009, MSEMT 2012) and Brandon Long were married Nov. 2, 2020 at the Dallas, TX Arboretum on their 7th year anniversary. The couple started dating in Singapore while bonding over a love for spreadsheets and recently moved to Dallas, TX. Jess is the Global Director of Supply Chain and Finance Global Business Services with LivaNova.
Madeline Pritchett (2018) was accepted at the University College London for graduate studies. She began a 12 month program based in London, last fall. Greg Frech (2014) continues to work for BNSF, over the last year and a half he worked with a team that rolled out the first in house developed optical railroad inspection system in the country (possibly the world). It’s on their geometry cars and takes high definition pictures at up to 70 mph, and then uses algorithms they built to detect missing or broken components, all while utilizing machine learning to improve its detection capabilities. They also successfully ran it in an unmanned state collecting data with no one monitoring the systems. The project earned his team employee of the year awards for 2020. Greg will now be transitioning to a
Carly Parsons (2018) gave a presentation at the Annual Conference of the Indiana Society of Professional Engineers about the construction of the 400 MW Headwaters II wind farm in Losantville, IN.
Arik Lokensgard (2017) got married this past year to Lauren. He continues to work for Kimley Horn and passed his PE Exam this past April.
KEEP IN TOUCH We are always interested in how our alumni are doing. Keep in touch by e mailing us at tanner2@rose hulman.edu.
Freshman Trip
Freshman Design
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CE Echoes Department Newsletter
The first year civil engineering students had another successful year of Introduction to Design. We had over 10 freshman design projects. Projects included conceptual designs for a new pool facility in Vigo County, parking lot layouts for local and regional businesses, conversion of historical buildings in Terre Haute for multi purpose use, and several park designs. One design include a design for a park in Fairbanks Park for a reflection space around a new historical marker.
The Introduction to Design class was also able to reestablish our long standing tradition of the freshman field trip. This year happened to be our 20th anniversary for this trip. We visited Cincinnati and toured Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky’s Public Service Park, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (thanks to Evers Steel Construction and Ed Evers – CE’83 for hosting), Greater Cincinnati Water Works, and the Cincinnati Children’s’ Hospital College Hill Expansion (thanks to Schaefer and Adam Knaack – CE’07 for hosting).
We had 21 seniors in capstone design this spring on a total of six projects:
• Rex Baseball Muilti Sport Complex – Terre Haute, Indiana
• Lindrith Llaves Volunteer Fire Department New Substation – Lindrith, New Mexico
• The Mill – Terre Haute, Indiana
They were all great opportunities for our students to assess client needs and explore solutions. The Solar District Cup project was a national design competition that partnered two of our students with several Rose Hulman electrical engineering students to design two solar farms. The experience helped the faculty develop a model for more cross disciplinary design projects in the future. If you know of a back burner project that might be a good opportunity for students to work on, please reach out to Jim Hanson (hanson@rose hulman.edu, 812 877 8279) or Angela Tanner (tanner2@rose hulman.edu, 812 877 8817). We consider design projects for freshman design, senior design, service activities, and individual courses.
• Solar District Cup Columbus, Ohio
ASCE
• Carmel Pedestrian Connectivity Carmel, Indiana
The ASCE student chapter is excited to be returning to normal chapter activities. Since the last update, we have welcomed our new chapter officers. Alexis Juarez (’23), Kyra Kicks (’24), Lily Byrne (’23), and Charley Bernth (’23) are serving as the President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer, respectively. The new leaders have led the chapter in a variety of service opportunities, fundraising, and social activities. A favorite was the inaugural faculty alumni versus student soccer tournament an event that hopefully turns into a long standing tradition. The chapter also competed in the IN KY ASCE Student Symposium (the successor of the ASCE Great
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CE Echoes Department Newsletter Senior Design Continued
on next page.
• Golden Hills City Mixed Development Enclave – Abira, Ghana
CE Echoes Newsletter
Summer 2022 7
Continued
Department
• Dr. Matt Lovell wrapped up his time as Chair of the Civil Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Department News
• The department’s graduate programs had a productive review by external evaluators in preparation for the Institute’s application for accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission. The review team complimented the quality and rigor of our programs and highlighted the externship requirement.
Lakes Conference). It was a cold yet fun weekend of learning and competition. from previous page.
• Dr. Kevin Sutterer was selected for the Thomas A. Morris Engineering Leadership Award by the Indiana Society of Professional Engineers.
• Dr. Namita Shrestha and her husband, Dr. Eden Bhatta, welcomed our newest future engineer, Alvin, to the department family in October.
CE Echoes Department Newsletter From The Staging Area
This past year brought a couple big changes: After twelve years of tremendous service leading the department, Dr. Kevin Sutterer wrapped up his time as Department Head and focused full time on teaching. A huge “thank you” to Kevin for keeping this department at the forefront of Civil Engineering education. Dr. Jim Hanson now serves that role.
This spring, masks were no longer mandatory and social distancing requirements were already lifted. It meant better interaction in the classroom, and we were able to resume field trips.
Making a Difference
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If you ever wondered whether a small gift would make a difference to the department, the answer is absolutely, YES! Each year we strive to provide personalized experiences and additional opportunities for our Civil Engineering students, and we need your help. Making a gift of $25 $75 can help us cover the costs of personalized hard hats for incoming freshman or provide a stipend for any of our students to work for the department. For the cost of one takeout pizza or the cost of a tank of gas, you can make a difference to your department and current Civil Engineering students. Want to make a difference? Scan this QR code or visit www.rosehulman.edu/give and designate “Civil Engineering” in the Other category.
