civil engineer

Amber Brown discusses Federal Highway Administration internship

Teresa Donnellan — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:07:57 +0000

Amber Brown discusses Federal Highway Administration internship Teresa Donnellan Thu, 10/20/2022 - 11:07

Despite having graduated high school in the teeth of the covid-19 pandemic, Amber Brown has made the most of her time on campus. After a freshman year that was almost entirely remote, Brown felt deprived of a year of involvement in campus life and student organizations. She remembers frantically searching during her sophomore year for a way to gain experience in her field, civil engineering.

“It's actually crazy, because I've always been scared to reach out to teachers, not because they're not open. It's more so because it's just new and uncomfortable. I'd never really done that before, networking with your teacher.”

Brown’s statics teacher mentioned his organization was hiring, which gave Brown the courage to reach out to him.

"I emailed him, and I was like, ‘Hi, I really enjoyed your class today. I heard you were hiring. Is there anything [for me]? If not, I understand.’ He sent me the program [information], and he's like, ‘Yeah, apply, and I'll put a good word in for you.’”

Brown became an intern at the US Department of Transportation Summer Transportation Internship Program for Diverse Groups, or the STIPDG program, run through The Washington Center. She worked on the Climate Challenge Program in the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

"I got really lucky,” Brown says, "because my mentor was a lead manager. So it kind of allowed me to see the other side of engineering. I did a lot of organizational skills and management work on [things] like planning, webinars, [and] proposals. I was mirroring project managers.”

She adds, “It was an exciting time, everyone was saying, because Biden was just passing legislation giving out money ... as it relates to anything sustainability.”

The program “relates to tracking greenhouse gases, which is done via an LCA, a life cycle assessment, or an EPD, an environmental project declaration,” Brown explains. In her role, Brown kept tabs on the program’s email inbox, made updates as needed to the program’s website and shared documents, and wrote up meeting agendas and event plans.

"I was in a bunch of meetings ... helping plan webinars to get information out,” she says, adding, “My favorite part was just seeing where states are at as it relates to tracking greenhouse gases. It's kind of crazy, because transportation is the biggest producer of greenhouse gas emission, and doing this is going to allow us to track it, make better aggregates, and all that stuff. So I was able to learn a lot about pavements and design.”

“I definitely think it gave me a lot of insight,” Brown reflects. When asked how the internship influenced her career plans, the junior says, “I'm still trying to figure out which avenue of civil [engineering to pursue], because I didn't realize it was so big.” She explains, “That internship gave me more of the construction management side, which I love. But now I kind of want to get more into...the field engineering side of it, seeing what that is and what that looks like. Then maybe I’ll have a better idea of what I want to do when I graduate.”

Topics

networking

American Society of Civil Engineers

civil engineer

Civil Engineering

civil engineering; stormwater infrastructure; climate variability

Remembering Sid Dewberry

4429684e-ae8d-405e-870a-3b7aefe68162 (Martha Bushong) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:12:03 +0000

Remembering Sid Dewberry 4429684e-ae8d-… Fri, 07/22/2022 - 07:12

In This Story

Kenneth Ball

Sidney O. Dewberry, a long-time friend and benefactor of the College of Engineering and Computing, died at his home in Arlington, Va. of natural causes on July 16, 2022. Dewberry co-founded his professional services firm in 1956. Since then, the firm has grown from a single-office, six-person civil engineering and surveying practice based in Northern Virginia to a nationwide consulting enterprise with more than 2,000 employees and 50 offices throughout the U.S.

“Sid was a visionary and a leader in the engineering field in Northern Virginia, but to the college, he was also a dear friend. His sense of community and generosity has had a tremendous impact‑‑establishing programs, supporting faculty, and inspiring students,” says College of Engineering and Computing Dean Ken Ball. “We will miss him greatly.”

Dewberry’s association with the college began in the late 1980s when he led efforts to form the CEC’s Urban Systems Engineering Institute, now known as the Civil Engineering Institute. The CEI Institute remains an active and engaged volunteer board that raises money, lends expertise, and supports student and faculty endeavors.

In 2012, the college’s civil engineering department was named the Sid and Reva Dewberry Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering in honor of the Dewberry’s extensive contributions to establishing and supporting the department. He was instrumental in establishing two faculty endowments for professorships, the first bearing his name in 2009 and the second honoring his long-time friends Bill and Eleanor Hazel in 2014.

"Sid will be remembered for so many years to come by the Mason community, especially our department which has been privileged by being named after Sid and his late wife, Reva,” says the department’s chair, Sam Salem.

Dewberry received multiple awards honoring his civic, charitable, and academic endeavors and his professional leadership including the CEC’s first-lifetime achievement award and George Mason University Mason Medal the highest honor bestowed by the university. He was rector emeritus of the George Mason University Board of Visitors, after serving an eight-year term as visitor and the last four as rector with a term ending June 2007.

Dewberry was preceded in death by his wife of 72 years, Reva, and his son, Michael Sidney Dewberry. He is survived by his son Barry K. Dewberry and wife Arlene Evans; daughter Karen S. Grand Pré and husband Bruce; son Thomas L. Dewberry and wife Christine; daughter-in-law Stephanie A. Dewberry; grandchildren Candace and Suzanne Grand Pré, and Michael, Katie, John, Kelly, Quinn, and Reagan Dewberry; his multiple great-grandchildren; and many nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-nephews.

Memorial services will be Saturday, July 23, 2022, at Fairfax Memorial Funeral Home, 9902 Braddock Road, Fairfax, VA 22032 – details on the website www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com.

Topics

civil and infrastructure engineering

civil engineer

Mason Engineering student builds career with summer internship

Nanci Hellmich — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 17:01:43 +0000

Mason Engineering student builds career with summer internship Nanci Hellmich Mon, 07/22/2019 - 13:01

Civil and infrastructure engineering student Nick Farmer is honing his engineering skills during an internship this summer with the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Ron Aira/Creative Services.

The transformation of construction projects from blueprints to buildings is part of what originally drew civil and infrastructure engineering student Nick Farmer into the field of civil engineering. Farmer is spending his summer applying his passion for construction to George Mason University’s core campus construction project, right in the middle of campus.

Farmer is working as an intern with the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company on the Robinson Building project on the Fairfax Campus. He didn’t know that when he accepted the internship that he wouldn’t be going far from his classrooms.

“All they told me originally was I would be on a site in the area, but I was surprised and excited when I found out that the construction site was here at Mason,” says Farmer.

As part of the project team, Farmer revises design plans so that contractors and subcontractors can stay up to date, but Farmer also makes sure to spend some time in the heat out on the job site each day to see those plans come to fruition.

“It doesn’t always come out exactly how you imagined based on a 2D model, but it’s cool to see how it gets there,” says Farmer.

“I always played with Legos as a kid,” says Farmer, “but besides that, I thought that I may want to design, and I was originally interested in architecture.”

After researching the differences between architecture and engineering, he decided to turn his focus to civil engineering where he found his passion for construction, as opposed to design. “I thought the design aspect [of civil engineering] was pretty close to architecture, and the construction side is very different from both of these, so I pursued construction and hopped on the first internship I could find.”

Farmer found his first internship with the Anderson Company, like his current one, at the Mason STEM career fair his freshman year. There he learned about excavation, but after that internship, he wanted to learn more about general contracting, which is what led him to the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company this summer.

Farmer’s initial excitement hasn’t waned as he has been learning how much collaboration is needed to pull off the six-story, 218,000-square-foot building.

“We have very detailed ‘push-pull’ meetings every week,” Farmer says. “I kind of geeked out when I saw the planning graph where the subcontractors detail what happens on each section of the construction site each day.”

Farmer hopes to absorb more knowledge and experience with the Whiting-Turner Contracting Company but is looking forward to his senior year at Mason as well.

“I’m excited to see the project keep growing and expanding, even though I won’t be on the project,” says Farmer. “Oh, and graduation.”

Editor's note: The contents of this article were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90DPGE0009). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this article do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.