The competition for civil engineering talent right now is well-documented.

And in an industry still coming out of the pandemic shake-up, that means innovation and efficiency are paramount.

In episode 147 of ASCE Plot Points, the Georgia Department of Transportation’s Donn Digamon, a state bridge engineer, and Ahsha McQuain, a civil engineer, talk about how they’ve continued innovating and motivating during the often-tumultuous 2020s.

The 2023 ASCE Architectural Engineering Institute International Student Design Competition challenged student teams to consider a real building – the five-story Kaleideum North in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – and innovatively design it as a living building as it is retrofit into a new children’s museum.

This includes all kinds of considerations – including green design elements, energy performance optimization, and embodied carbon reduction.

And this year, the multidisplinary team from Penn State took first place in two categories – building integration and construction – and second place in the other three categories.

In episode 146 of ASCE Plot Points, Penn State team lead Jordan Kubenik talks about how the Nittany Lions managed such a massive project and how it’s helped her get a jumpstart on her career this summer.

It’s another week of work for Jose Abinazar, a project designer for Gannett Fleming in Miami, Florida.

But the journey to get to this work week wasn’t so simple.

His civil engineering college experience in Venezuela was interrupted; his family fled political turmoil and moved to Miami; Jose had to learn a new language, find a job, find a new school, and start all over again.

But he made it work.

In episode 145 of ASCE Plot Points, Abinazar reflects on his civil engineering story and why he won’t ever stop looking for the next chapter to write.

With the first ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships approaching this weekend, June 10-12 at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville, there is an interesting drama playing out with the University of South Alabama concrete canoe team.

Longtime faculty adviser for the South Alabama ASCE student chapter Eric Steward, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, made a promise to his students a decade ago. If a South Alabama student team ever advanced to a Society-wide competition, he said, he’d commemorate the accomplishment with … a tattoo.

Ten years later, South Alabama has made the finals in steel bridge and concrete canoe.

In episode 144 of ASCE Plot Points, Steward discusses the value in ASCE student competitions and how this tattoo promise is going to play out.

As noted in a recent Civil Engineering magazine article, the civil engineering industry is still sorting out whether work-from-home arrangements established at the outset of the COVID pandemic remain viable as life moves forward into something like normalcy.

For Christopher Seigel, a civil engineer with Sci-Tek Consultants in Philadelphia, working from home has been a net positive.

In episode 143 of ASCE Plot Points, Seigel discusses all angles of working from home for civil engineers and why he thinks it may simply be the way of the future.

This week’s episode of the ASCE Plot Points podcast is the first of what we’re calling Student Sessions. Three ASCE student ambassadors – Alysha Curtis of Fresno State, Peter Yu of the University of Washington, and Evan Brittenham of Western Kentucky University – talk about what thrills them and what intimidates them as they get ready to trade the grad cap for a hardhat.

ASCE has been publishing its Best Places to Be a Civil Engineer rankings for four years now, based on a combination of salary data, civil engineering job opportunities, and cost of living.

And over that span, the city that has risen the most up the list might surprise you.

It’s a city known for its climate, its beaches, and now its civil engineering.

It’s San Diego, California, and in episode 141 of ASCE Plot Points, Vanessa Eslava, A.M.ASCE, a transportation engineer for T.Y. Lin, talks about what makes her hometown so special.

Dimitrios Athanasiou, Ph.D., E.I.T., A.M.ASCE, is a senior associate of environmental and earth sciences at Exponent in Bellevue, Washington; he has a Ph.D. from Texas Tech in civil engineering; and he’s the co-chair of the ASCE EWRI Seattle Chapter.

But he began his education with a bachelor’s degree back home in Greece in physics.

So he has an interesting perspective on any comparison between the theoretical and the applied.

In episode 140 of ASCE Plot Points, Athanasiou talks with guest hosts Brianne Duncan and Wendy Cohen of the ASCE EWRI Environmental Health and Water Quality Committee.

Kevin Brown, P.E., M.ASCE, is a construction services manager at TranSystems in Philadelphia and an adjunct professor 

Infrastructure advocacy takes center stage this week with the ASCE Legislative Fly-In in Washington, D.C.

Sarah Matin, P.E., M.ASCE, Orlando office principal for S&ME and chair of the ASCE Public Policy and Practice Committee, is one of the many ASCE members headed to Capitol Hill this week looking to keep the IIJA momentum going.

In episode 138 of ASCE Plot Points, Matin talks about how IIJA funding is affecting work going on in Florida and what’s next for infrastructure advocacy.