Civil Talks about Civil Engineering

Finch Cantu | Pulse 

Three UTRGV civil engineering professors shed light on how they became civil engineers, how they feel about their careers and what their research entails.

Jungseok Ho, civil engineering professor and chair of the UTRGV department of Civil Engineering

• His research:
  • Ho’s research focuses on water resource management and environmental engineering, especially regarding water quantity and water quality. Locally, this includes storm surge and flood control, groundwater contamination, and issues of high bacteria levels and high salinity of the Rio Grande river. Ho has been involved in the development of an AI algorithm to forecast the Rio Grande’s salinity for the past two years. He said he has also received an external grant to develop flood forecasting for the Hidalgo and Cameron County areas. 
• How he became a civil engineer:
  • Ho originally intended to be an architect before realizing architecture had a heavier focus on design aesthetics beyond what he was interested in. He also liked the idea of working on larger scale projects as part of civil engineering.
• His favorite things about civil engineering:
  • Aside from the pay, Ho said he enjoys the variety of projects civil engineers get to work on and the problem solving required. “…Each one of them, they’re not the same. They’re always different. … And if my solution is adopted by others … that is a pretty good feeling,” he added.
  • Additionally, Ho said civil engineering is “a really good way to contribute [to] our society and our community.”

Thuy Vu, civil engineering associate professor and assistant chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at UTRGV

• Her research:
  • Professor Vu’s research specialty is geotechnical engineering, which works with built structures and their relationship with the surrounding soil. Her research is primarily focused on developing guidelines for deep foundations (foundations beneath buildings that can stretch many feet underground). A secondary focus of Vu’s research is reinforced soil mass, which is necessary for building as well as studying the properties of the soil mass. She said she has also received a grant from the National Science Foundation for a math program to help engineering students.
• How she became a civil engineer:
  • Vu was originally studying business, but switched to engineering mid-semester upon figuring out it wasn’t what she expected. “‘Oh no, no, this is not for me.’ I like to work with numbers. I don’t want to read words,”she added.
  • Her interest in solving problems and teaching extend back to her childhood. Vu said she would often build towers with blocks and would also gather her neighborhood friends and pretend to be a teacher. “So right now I am an engineer. I’m a teacher. So technically, I do what I think, naturally, I want[ed] to do when I was a baby, four, five years old,” she said.
• Her favorite things about civil engineering:
  • Aside from the pay, Vu said that she enjoys solving problems and contributing to society. She also appreciates the integrity required in her career.
  • “One of the things I think is that … engineering, professionally, is the most honest career, because we deal with the problem. Here is the issue, here are the results. … You don’t change the numbers to make people happy,” she explained. 

Jinwoo An, civil engineering assistant professor

• His research:
  • Professor An’s focus is structural engineering and construction materials. His research includes creating geopolymers for concrete from lunar soil and creating cement from industrial and mining wastes. These are used as a means of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of concrete. One of his research projects involves the use of core fly ash, left over from power plant activities, as an ingredient for cement, which An said can reduce CO2 emissions by 50%.
  • His other projects mainly involve the creation of various engineering and construction materials. 
• How he became a civil engineer:
  • An said he became interested in the field because his father was a civil engineer.
  • He originally majored in architecture engineering and was an architecture engineer in South Korea for a year. He then moved into civil engineering with a master’s degree in structural engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He entered the world of civil engineering research with his doctorate in materials engineering at the University of Central Florida, where he became a postdoctoral researcher for three years.
• His favorite things about civil engineering:
  • An said one of his favorite things about his career are the engineers themselves because they solve problems. He considers it “very fun” to solve new and complex engineering problems.

For more on the Department of Civil Engineering, check out Pulse Magazine Issue X, coming soon in the red bins across the Edinburg and Brownsville campuses.