Speakers
Welcoming Remarks
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Dr. Alba Torrents
Interim Chair and the Ben Dyer Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Maryland College Park
(UMD), Dr. Alba Torrents has more than 30 years of research assessing the fate and transport of pollutants in the environment and best practices for soil remediation. Her work combines field observations and case studies to link scientific and engineering principles to engineering practice. Her group is also part of a team evaluating the use of biosolids and compost for onsite remediation at two superfunds sites. Her role as an educator is to facilitate learning by creating experiences where scientific principles can be applied to effectively address current and future environmental issues. In her spared time she enjoys gardening, cooking, and traveling. |
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Jack A. Raudenbush, P.E., M.ASCE
Jack is a Senior Vice President at Navarro and Wright and is a Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, New Jersey, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. He earned a BS degree from Penn State University. He is a Past President of the Central PA Section
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Keynote Speaker - ASCE Future World
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Jerry Buckwalter
Gerald (Jerry) Buckwalter is the chief innovation officer responsible for helping to shape the strategic direction of ASCE. Additionally, he oversees the Future World Vision initiative, a forward-leaning strategic assessment and visualization project where ASCE is creating a virtual and interactive computer model to assess potential built environments 50 years into the future. Jerry was formerly the ASCE Chief Operating and Strategy Officer. With over 35 years of experience, he came to ASCE from Northrop Grumman, where he most recently served as director of corporate strategy.
Buckwalter earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Monmouth University and completed advanced coursework in technology systems at The George Washington University and in international business management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was the 2018 recipient of the ASCE William H. Wisely American Civil Engineer Award and was an Engineering News-Record Top 25 Newsmaker in 2019. |
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ASCE MOSAIC - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Engineering
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Carol Martsolf
Carol Martsolf, PE, PMP, CPTD, LEED AP, M.ASCE is Vice President and Chief Learning Officer for Urban Engineers, Inc. (Urban Training Institute). A graduate of Temple University and a Professional Engineer with 27 years of experience, Ms. Martsolf has utilized her technical expertise and career knowledge to create the Urban Training Institute and develop dynamic training programs. Under her leadership, the Institute quickly evolved into an award-winning and highly-respected institution. She is a former President of the ASCE Philadelphia Section, past Region 2 Governor, and Chair of MOSAIC.
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She has developed and executed various extensive leadership and project management programs for Urban Engineers, SEPTA, Amtrak, the Philadelphia Streets Department, Philadelphia International Airport, PennDOT, and other clients, to help them achieve organizational strategic goals and enhance leadership growth and development.
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Gregory J. Kuklinski, PE
Greg received his BS Degree in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University in 1998 with 20 years of experience in the Transportation field and is a registered Professional Engineer in PA. Greg is a Project Manager at Alfred Benesch & Company in Allentown, PA where he has worked since 2000 as a structural engineer where he manages various bridge and P3 projects for state and local agencies including PENNDOT, Northampton and Lehigh Counties.
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Greg has served on various Society committees including the Committee on Younger Members (CYM), Committee on Geographic Units (CGU) and most recently the Leader Training Committee (LTC) all from 2006-2020. His primary responsibilities on those committees was planning the Presidents and Governors Forum and assisting with the planning of the Region 1, 2, 4 and 5 Multi-Regional Leadership Conference. He has served in various roles on the Lehigh Valley Section Board since graduation including Associate Member Director and Secretary. Greg is currently the Practitioner Advisor for the Lehigh University Student Chapter, a Region 2 Governor, a Corresponding Member on the Leader Training Committee and a Member on the Task Committee for Geographic Assessment of Programs and Support.
ASCE Leader Training Committee
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Hannah Clark
Originally from Northern Virginia, Hannah is a Manager for the Geographic Services Department. Having been with ASCE since 2015, she primarily works on content and A/V coordination for the Multi Region Leadership Conferences, the Presidents and Governors Forum and Leader Orientation. She also manages the Leader Training Committee(LTC) website, acts as a Staff Contact for the Drupal website program for Sections and Branches and presents with members of the LTC at Region Assemblies and Institute Summits. She attended Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA where she received her B.S. in Psychology and serves as Co-Chair of the ASCE Staff Culture Committee and is a founding member of the ASCE Staff Health & Wellness Committee.
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ASCE President's Reception
Dennis Truax, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE, D.WRE, F.NSPE, F.ASCE
Dennis D. Truax is professor emeritus of the Richard A. Rula School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Mississippi State University. During his 41 years, he served as school director, department head, and professor. He held the James T. White endowed chair for 15 years and was director or co-director of the Mississippi Transportation Research Institute for 13 years.
Truax is a licensed professional engineer and holds national certifications as an environmental engineer from the American Academy of Environmental Engineering and Scientists and as a water resources engineer with American Academy of Water Resources Engineers. As a consulting engineer, he has worked on environmental and water resource management systems throughout the world, including the design of over 550 water and wastewater treatments systems.
He was elected fellow of ASCE in 1999 and fellow of the National Society of Professional Engineers in 2016. He is a chapter honor member of the Mississippi State University Chapter of Chi Epsilon. He received the 2020 Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition Award and the 2018 NCEES Distinguished Service Award. Recently, he was the 2020 ASCE Region 5 Wall of Fame Inductee and in 2021 was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Alumni of the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech.
He served on the ASCE Board of Direction, chaired numerous committees and task forces related to Society organization, student activities, diversity, professional development, and technical advancement. He was faculty advisor to the Mississippi State ASCE Student Chapter for 26 years and was the charter faculty advisor for the Mississippi State Chapter of Engineers without Borders having worked with that group for 11 years. He holds or has held national leadership positions and committee appointments with National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, NSPE, and the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. He just completed his 13th year on Mississippi’s Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors, having served as board president twice, and served 12 years on the state’s Onsite Wastewater Advisory Council as chair for most of that time.
During his academic career, he has published over 120 refereed and reference papers and report and made almost 170 papers and poster presentations. Dr. Truax research areas included wastewater treatment, process optimization, management of organic and inorganic hazardous wastes, and modeling of surface waters for TMDL determination. His other areas of research related to transportation and construction engineering and included delineation of roadway systems and NEPA compliance for highways using remotely-sense data, modeling of highway evacuation strategies, predicting pavement performance, evaluating resources and their allocation in the management of waterways, and comparing the economics of transportation management alternatives.
Professionally, he has worked on environmental and water resource management systems throughout the United States as well as Argentina, Canada, China, Mexico, Romania, Tanzania, Turkey and Venezuela. He has consulted for local and international engineering firms, small municipalities and regional authorities, law firms, industry, and federal agencies. Technically, he has helped design over 500 wastewater treatment plants world-wide. He was project engineer for the design, permitting, contract management, and construction of a regional solids waste management system and has worked on almost a dozen county or regional solid waste management plans. He has performed numerous Environmental Assessments, supervised the clean-up of several hazardous waste sites, and provided inspection for hazardous materials management systems throughout Mississippi.
Truax is a licensed professional engineer and holds national certifications as an environmental engineer from the American Academy of Environmental Engineering and Scientists and as a water resources engineer with American Academy of Water Resources Engineers. As a consulting engineer, he has worked on environmental and water resource management systems throughout the world, including the design of over 550 water and wastewater treatments systems.
He was elected fellow of ASCE in 1999 and fellow of the National Society of Professional Engineers in 2016. He is a chapter honor member of the Mississippi State University Chapter of Chi Epsilon. He received the 2020 Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition Award and the 2018 NCEES Distinguished Service Award. Recently, he was the 2020 ASCE Region 5 Wall of Fame Inductee and in 2021 was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Alumni of the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech.
He served on the ASCE Board of Direction, chaired numerous committees and task forces related to Society organization, student activities, diversity, professional development, and technical advancement. He was faculty advisor to the Mississippi State ASCE Student Chapter for 26 years and was the charter faculty advisor for the Mississippi State Chapter of Engineers without Borders having worked with that group for 11 years. He holds or has held national leadership positions and committee appointments with National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, NSPE, and the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. He just completed his 13th year on Mississippi’s Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Surveyors, having served as board president twice, and served 12 years on the state’s Onsite Wastewater Advisory Council as chair for most of that time.
During his academic career, he has published over 120 refereed and reference papers and report and made almost 170 papers and poster presentations. Dr. Truax research areas included wastewater treatment, process optimization, management of organic and inorganic hazardous wastes, and modeling of surface waters for TMDL determination. His other areas of research related to transportation and construction engineering and included delineation of roadway systems and NEPA compliance for highways using remotely-sense data, modeling of highway evacuation strategies, predicting pavement performance, evaluating resources and their allocation in the management of waterways, and comparing the economics of transportation management alternatives.
Professionally, he has worked on environmental and water resource management systems throughout the United States as well as Argentina, Canada, China, Mexico, Romania, Tanzania, Turkey and Venezuela. He has consulted for local and international engineering firms, small municipalities and regional authorities, law firms, industry, and federal agencies. Technically, he has helped design over 500 wastewater treatment plants world-wide. He was project engineer for the design, permitting, contract management, and construction of a regional solids waste management system and has worked on almost a dozen county or regional solid waste management plans. He has performed numerous Environmental Assessments, supervised the clean-up of several hazardous waste sites, and provided inspection for hazardous materials management systems throughout Mississippi.
Breakout Room 1: Sustainability Experts
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Dr. Natasha Andrade
Dr. Natasha Andrade is the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs and a Senior Lecturer in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Maryland College Park (UMD). She is passionate about teaching and teaches various environmental engineering undergraduate courses and study abroad courses in Iceland, Costa Rica, and Peru. Her research focuses on understanding how engineering students make sense of the interaction between technology, social issues, and designer responsibility. She also collaborates with other engineering faculty within UMD and at other universities in a project to change the engineering curriculum to introduce more environmental and social context to all engineering design. Dr. Andrade is involved with several undergraduate students’ organizations, and she thrives in this environment. Her discipline research revolves around mercury contamination of Amazon regions that were deforested by small-scale and illegal gold mining. Another area of research is related to the production of stabilized biosolids, focusing on its use as a fertilizer and its impact on environmental pollution concerning organic contaminants. Outside of work, she enjoys rock climbing, nature, hiking, snorkeling, biking, and dancing.
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Breakout Room 2: Life After College
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John Johnson
John Johnson serves as the Assistant Director at the University of Maryland, College Park, Project Management Center for Excellence. He leads the initiatives that help grow the Project Management Center for Excellence across its three pillars: Academic Excellence, Outreach and Professional Development, and Research. He is primarily responsible for the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) program, which currently is educating over 250,000 enrolled learners across the world. Mr. Johnson also teaches graduate courses on Agile and Predictive management at the University of Maryland’s Project Management Program.
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Closing Speaker
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Dr. Deb Niemeier
Deb Niemeier is the Clark Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainability at the University of Maryland, College Park and serves as a professor in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She has extensive expertise in understanding the spatial properties of mobile source emissions, developing new methods for improving vehicle emissions inventories, and accelerating the implementation of regulatory guidance to better identify vulnerable populations and environmental health disparities. Her research is currently focused on understanding infrastructure features that give rise to inequitable outcomes in the built environment, particularly with the onset of climate change. In 2014, Niemeier was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for “distinguished contributions to energy and environmental science study and policy development.” In 2015, she was named a Guggenheim Fellow for foundational work on pro bono service in engineering. In 2017, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Niemeier received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Texas (1982), her M.S. from the University of Maine and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Washington (1994).
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