I
n the space of two hours, Dr. Virginia Smith advises a student, is interviewed by a magazine editor, and visited separately by two fellow Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty with whom she’s collaborating. It’s just another day in the life of this busy assistant professor for whom teaching and research have proven to be a winning combination.
FACULTY NEWS
GROWING UP WITH A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
14
WATER RESOURCES PROFESSOR VIRGINIA SMITH MAKES A SPLASH AT VILLANOVA
Dr. Smith is still relatively new to academia, having come to Villanova University five years ago for her first teaching position. Prior to arriving on the Main Line, she spent several years in far different environs, first as an associate scientist for the Adapt Asia-Pacific project in Thailand, and later as the water coordinator for Afghanistan, overseeing water and natural resource management projects. Growing up as the daughter of an Air Force officer, Dr. Smith is no stranger to life outside of the United States and the transformative opportunities it offers. In fact, it was while visiting Kenya in the eighth grade that she saw the impact of Peace Corps Volunteers, who impressed her with their grass roots efforts such that, “I just knew international development was for me.” Fast forward 10 years and Dr. Smith herself joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Georgia Tech with her bachelor’s degree, spending two years in Samoa where she served as a rural capacity development volunteer working on the National Water Project and village development. When she returned to the US, she earned her master’s degree at the Cockrell School of Engineering and PhD at the Jackson School of Geosciences, both at the University of Texas, Austin.
IMPARTING A PASSION FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Today, as the mother of 2- and 4-year-old daughters, Dr. Smith tries to limit her time spent traveling the globe, but that doesn’t mean she’s put her passion for international development on the back burner. Through the College of Engineering’s freshman year miniproject, which she teaches with her husband Bryan Enslein ’07 CE, PE—a professional engineer and former diplomat working in international development—honors students are being challenged to respond to natural disasters in Haiti through shelter design. At the same time, she’s advising teams of seniors on a capstone project benefitting Neema, an organization in Kenya that equips vulnerable young women with skills training to help them escape poverty. Given the growth of its technical school, the organization is considering a new campus and Villanova students are assisting with the civil engineering design. The project has grown over the past two years to include elements of environmental sustainability and what Dr. Smith calls “engineering design in the human context.” This February, Civil and Environmental Engineering students traveled to Kenya to assess the organization’s needs and available resources.
