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Faces of Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering

Ying Guan BS ’08 
Bloomberg Scholar

“During my time at Hopkins Civ-E, I have had the pleasure of researching with two professors and also working with a team of Hopkins undergraduates to help structurally redesign Gilman Hall.”

Ying Guan has been a very prolific undergraduate researcher during his undergraduate career at Johns Hopkins Civil Engineering.  His first researching opportunity came at the end of sophomore year; working under Professor Sanjay Arwade, Ying used finite strip analysis to optimize buckling in hollow structural members.  His later work with Professor Benjamin Schafer involved using computer simulations to model the interaction between cold-formed steel joists and sheathing surfaces like plywood. Ying was awarded the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) for $3,000 USD to help fund his senior year of research, and he also received honors from the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute for his research.

Guan also spent a lot of time as the publicist and active student member of Habitat for Humanity, traveling into intercity Baltimore every weekend to help build houses for the less fortunate.   He is now pursuing his doctorate at Stanford University, where he was granted a fellowship to conduct seismic engineering research.

 

Katherine Acton MSE ‘08 
Graduate Student

“I realized that I wouldn’t be satisfied unless I could get into something where my [math] degree could be physically applied.”

Katherine Acton took an unusual route to obtaining her MSE in Civil Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.  As an undergraduate, she majored in English (her honors thesis was in creative writing) and also mathematics. 

A Baltimore-area native, she returned to Baltimore after her undergraduate career, and decided to enroll in the Engineering and Applied Science Programs for Professionals (EPP) at Johns Hopkins.  In addition to her coursework, Katherine took on work as an on-site supervisor for a major construction contracting company. “A lot of people questioned what I knew,” she recalls, “So I had to work on developing my sense of self-confidence. I found that often it’s not so much what you know or say, but how you say it that matters.” Under Professor Lori Graham-Brady, Acton became a full-time researcher in 2003, working with material properties of functionally graded materials, which are composites that have gradations of two or more materials. Acton will continue on her way towards her doctorate in civil engineering at Johns Hopkins, and she also plans to someday obtain an MFA in creative writing.

 

Blair Johnson BS ‘08
Westgate Scholar

“Studying coastal engineering has allowed me to travel to some of the most amazing places all over the world.”

As an undergraduate here at Hopkins, Blair primarily worked with Professor Tony Dalrymple, studying ground conditions under seas and the dynamics of wave movement over mud. The long-term application of this research is of interest to the military, which could use satellite imagery to examine wave behavior on the surface of water to help detect mines.  Through her research experiences Blair was able to interact with engineers from some of the top peer institutions from around the world, including MIT, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Boston College, and the Memorial University of Newfoundland.  

Blair also was able to travel extensively. As a recipient of the Vredenburg Scholarship from the Whiting School of Engineering, Blair spent a summer in Granada, Spain, helping researchers create a new breakwater design for port and harbor construction. Beyond her engineering studies, Blair completed the music minor in piano at the Peabody Institute, she became president of her sorority and lead of Hopkins’ student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

 

Linda Wan BS '09
President of EWB

 “I like attending ASCE [American Society for Civil Engineers] Maryland Section meetings because I get to socialize with professionals as well as with my JHU Civil Engineering friends.” 

Civil engineers at Hopkins develop into engineers with people skills, and there is no better example of that than Linda Wan.  Currently Linda is the president of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), a primarily undergraduate organization open to all engineers at JHU which implements sustainability projects in developing countries, providing infrastructure to better the daily lives of impoverished communities.  Linda is overseeing three major projects, sending groups of Johns Hopkins students abroad to Guatemala, Ecuador, and South Africa.  Linda also holds considerable responsibility for the wellbeing of forty college students on campus; as a building Residential Advisor (RA), she has used her creativity to plan floor events, resolve conflicts and handle emergencies.  But despite having a packed schedule, Linda finds the job rewarding. “Hopkins has a hidden treasure that I have recently discovered: the student body population.”

Benjamin Frison BS '10
Westgate Scholar

 “Your world becomes redefined when you study civil engineering. Every time I go over a bridge, pass the construction of a large building, or visit an old church in Europe, things are much more interesting now that I understand the principles about why they don't fall down.” 

Benjamin Frison agrees that the civil engineers at JHU have the advantage of seeing with the naked eye what they are researching with, sometimes on very large scales. Involved with Engineers Without Borders, he traveled with a small assessment team to Ecuador for an intense 20-day exploration of the infrastructure in the area. Now he's focusing on intense research in the department. “I have found the civil engineering department at Hopkins to be, without a doubt, a perfect blend of hot-shot, highly theoretical research and hard-hat field work.”

In addition to civil engineering work, Ben spends his time with the breakdancing group on campus, sometimes practicing 5 hours a day. Recently he was an emcee for a Johns Hopkins breakdance “battle,” bringing together breakdancers from all over the East Coast to compete.

Lindsey Smith
Graduate Student

“Composite materials have been designed somewhat by trial and error. Designers have an intuitive sense of how to arrange fibers in a matrix to make the material as strong as possible. At the civil engineering department at JHU, Professor Guest's lab is coming up with computational algorithms for determining exactly where those fibers should be. These algorithms would determine the structure at the microscale to make a material mathematically optimal for a desired performance property, such as stiffness or conductivity.”  

To optimize the strength of materials and structures used in biomedical applications, one must apply the principles of mechanics. This can become a challenging task in these multiphysics settings, says Lindsey Smith, a second year doctoral student in civil engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Smith is a member of the NanoBio IGERT with the Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Funded by the National Science Foundation, IGERT stands for Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship.

Smith's interest in structures and engineering blossomed after taking a high school introductory course on the topic. “I was always strong in math and science,” she says. “I also was fascinated with architecture and large buildings.” Smith graduated in 2003 from Columbia University with a major in Engineering Mechanics.

Leah Zambetti BS '10
Construction Intern at Bovis Lend Lease

“I love pretty much everything construction – the noise, the problem solving, the team atmosphere…the list goes on.”

Leah Zambetti wants to have both a very technical and very people-oriented career in civil engineering. This influenced her to work 12-week internships her freshman and sophomore summers for Bovis Lend Lease, a construction company in New York.  Leah supervised the logistics officers and the on-site supervisor.   “I did a lot of work with the Project Manager by writing and organizing bids, change orders, and contracts, doing some accounting work, and sitting in on meetings. I also worked closely with the Super by walking around the site with him, doing punch lists, and communicating with the tradesmen.”

Outside of her tight-knit community of civil engineering friends, being in the Alpha Phi sorority on campus has completed her experience at Hopkins, allowing her to meet new people, get creative planning a variety of events, and give back to the local community.  “If not for the Alpha Phi activities we have throughout the school year, I may have never met many of the girls I consider my closest friends – that includes my very own big!” 

 

Gavin Fine BS ‘09
Civil Engineer and Businessman

“Civil Engineering at Hopkins has made me into an extremely hard and efficient worker.  Hopkins also has made me into a good problem solver, which is something that Lehman Brothers has been pleased with.”

Gavin Fine is developing both a knack for business and civil engineering at JHU.  A Civil Engineering major and a minor in the W.P. Carey Entrepreneurship and Management program at Hopkins, Gavin found summer work at Lehman Brothers in Texas as an intern on the power trading floor for natural gas.    “The cool thing about this type of natural gas trading is that they trade gas for power plants and other infrastructure, for today and next day. Then they have schedulers who actually send the gas through the pipes to these power plants.  On the other side of the room is power trading where they do the same thing as the natural gas but with electricity.” 

During the school year, Gavin enjoys most of the courses in the department, and in particular he is interested with fluid mechanics and soil mechanics.”Soil mechanics was awesome because we had a great teacher (Dr. Rajah) and the lab was really exciting. We got to do things like make quicksand and pressure tests on soil specimens we made.” 

 

Dynamic Testing of Structures Using Shaking Table

Newly constructed uniaxial shaking table allows testing of scaled buildings and bridges under dynamic loadings. Prof. Nakata’s research group is developing innovative structural systems and verifying their concept through shaking table test.

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