In an effort to “Pay It Forward,” SE University is happy to announce our “SEU Speaker Inspires” program in which our speakers can designate a charity/organization of their choice for SE University to make a donation to help improve our world.

Cathleen Jacinto, SE, PE

In April 2015, Cathleen Jacinto, PE, SE, gave a talk on Checklists to Assist the Structural Engineer During Construction Administration for SE University. She chose Cancer Research Institute (http://cancerresearch.org), for the donation of the month.

Cathleen said this about her choice, “Cancer Research Institute is a great organization advancing research in several types of cancer immunology, a disease affecting millions of people.”

Thank you, Cathleen, for helping structural engineers with your SE University session, and for your designation of Cancer Research Institute as our SEU Speaker Inspires Organization of the Month!

by Julian Gonsalves and Susan Khalifah, SE, PE

The CHICAGOLAND PROFESSIONAL CHAPTER (CPC), founded in 2005, is one of the largest Engineers Without Borders (EWB) chapters in the United States with five active programs in four countries around the world (Honduras, Guatemala, Burkino Faso, and Kenya); each program requiring a minimum 5 year commitment with a community. In our nine year history we have completed four programs (in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala) and adopted five additional communities directly impacting approximately 16,000 people and indirectly affecting over 36,000 in the communities’ surrounding areas. Our projects include building community wells, flood mitigation, constructing pedestrian and vehicle bridges, energy management systems, sanitation and latrine systems, water storage and distribution systems and other infrastructure needs that the communities identify.

Here’s a lookback at what EWC-CPC accomplished in 2014:

For a school in Ak’Tenamit, Guatemala: we implemented a new sanitation system complete with 14 flush toilets, 4 waterless urinals, a hand washing system, and a anaerobic baffled reactor for treating the wastewater. We also installed a solar pump for the school’s water supply saving them $5,000 a year in diesel fuel.

For the community of Armenta, Honduras: we constructed a new storage tank, new sedimentation tank and trained and assisted community members on how to install pipelines and pipe bridges; working together with the community, the residents will have access to water everyday instead of once a week.

For the community of Candelaria, Honduras: we constructed a river training structure to help with the local economy, made improvements to their Waste Management site, demonstrated disposal methods for their medical waste, and helped the community with their environmental stewardship.

For the community of Mayanja-Kibuke, Kenya: we worked with community members on building spring boxes to protect their water sources from contamination. The team built 5 spring boxes and they trained the community on how to construct additional spring boxes as well as how to repair damaged ones.

For the community of Napenkara, Burkino Faso: in the village of Napenkara, the NGO Future for Faso Children (FFC) and Evanston Lighthouse Rotary implemented a water well in 2013. We are working with FFC to implement a second water well for the village.

All of these projects happened because of CPC’s hard work and the generosity of our donors. Our Chapter’s success is a direct result of our 120+ members and our 200+ network of volunteers. The CPC 2014 Year-End Campaign continues until January 10, 2015 and with your help we can have an even larger impact in 2015.

To learn more about our work, get involved or donate, please visit: http://ewb-usa-chicago.org/.

To contact EWB Chicagoland Professionals, please e-mail [email protected]

We are excited to announce that we have hired Cathleen Jacinto, SE, PE, to expand the technical content for SE University™. This will include additional information to further enhance the Innovation Hub of the SEU Resource Center™ as well as technical content for web seminars. Cathleen was the author of the Coordination Checklist for Elevator Design.

Cathleen worked as a structural engineer in Chicago for 14 years, including 10 years at Thornton Tomasetti and 4 years at T.Y. Lin International. She has a BSCE from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) and a Master’s in Structural Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). A licensed SE and PE in Illinois, Cathleen lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and two daughters.

She can be reached via email at [email protected], or you can also connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/cathleenjacinto.

SE Solutions was pleased to recently present scholarships to two Purdue MSCE-Structures students to help defray the cost of their education. Di Chen and Harsh Nisar were the recipients of the award. This is the third year that SE Solutions has offered the scholarships.

Purdue University MSCE Students and Scholarship Winners Harsh Nisar (left) and Di Chen (right), with SE Solutions, LLC President Brian Quinn 

Di and Harsh anticipate graduating this December and are excited to start their careers in structural engineering.

Di Chen received his BSCE from Tongji University in China, and he will be finishing his MSCE this December (2014). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering and is open to moving anywhere in the US. Di is an international student and would require work sponsorship at some point in the future (after his initial “OPT”).

Just before Di started college, the Wenchuan Earthquake (also called Sichuan Earthquake) hit China in May 2008 causing immense damage and claiming approximately 90,000 lives while injuring over 300,000. This earthquake hit about 75 miles from Di’s home. Luckily, no one from his family was hurt, but this event was why Di chose to become a structural engineer, and he was involved in the recovery events after the earthquake. Di has a perfect 4.0 GPA in the MS Program at Purdue.

For additional background on Di, please see his Linkedin profile at www.linkedin.com/pub/di-chen/91/2a9/a74 .

Harsh Nisar received his BSCE from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay. He is doing a master’s thesis related to developing an axisymmetric finite element for cylindrical tanks with thermal loads. Harsh will be finishing his coursework in December and hopes to have his thesis finished shortly afterwards. He would like to find a structural engineering position anywhere in the US and his passion is Solid Mechanics. Here is what Harsh had to say about Solid Mechanics…

“Solid Mechanics drew me towards structural engineering. As a high school student I was fascinated by the simplicity and universality of the principles of classical mechanics. This has only grown as I’ve gained more insight into solid mechanics, especially with respect to structural behavior. As a structural engineer one works in special cases of a far more general framework of solid mechanics. This generality remains spellbinding. The challenge is in isolating favorable behavior for a system through analysis and enforcing conditions, through design, to ensure favorable outcome.”

Harsh is an international student and would require work sponsorship at some point in the future (after his initial “OPT”). Harsh also has a perfect 4.0 GPA in the MS Program at Purdue.

For additional background on Harsh, please see his Linkedin profile at www.linkedin.com/in/harshnisar.

Would you like to use your background to help people in the Philippines?

We are helping the organization of Build Change (www.BuildChange.org) find a structural engineer to help them with their efforts in the Philippines. If you might know of someone interested in improving our world as a structural engineer in the Philippines, please let us know.

Build Change (www.buildchange.org) is an international non-profit social enterprise that designs earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries and trains builders, homeowners, engineers and government officials to build them. Build Change’s designs are affordable, culturally appropriate, and use materials and techniques that will continue to be used after our intervention is finished. Build Change has ongoing post-earthquake housing reconstruction programs in West Sumatra, Indonesia and Sichuan, China. So far, Build Change has improved the design and/or construction of over 20,000 houses worldwide.

For more information please see our Hot Job 324.

SE Solutions is excited to be assisting AISC with its event for structural engineering students at the North American Steel Construction Conference (NASCC) for the 4^th year in a row. The Students Connecting with Industry Sessions (SCIS) begins with several speakers in the morning talking about student specific issues, followed by lunch and an exhibit hall tour. The afternoon features an opportunity for students to meet one-on-one with 40 great companies involved in all different aspects of structural engineering as part of the Direct Connect networking session.

With this year’s event being in Toronto, students from both the US and Canada will be attending. Student members of AISC and CISC can attend NASCC and SCIS for no charge, and in addition, the education foundations of both AISC and CISC are offering travel reimbursements up to $175 per student. For more information on the event, please see www.aisc.org/scis.

Brian Quinn and Lisa Willard from SE Solutions will be attending NASCC April 26 – 28. If you will be attending, we hope to see you there!

SE Solutions was pleased to recently present scholarships to two Purdue MSCE-Structures students to help defray the cost of their education. Joseph (Joey) Jones, EIT and Raymond (Ray) Chou, EIT were the recipients of the awards. This is the second year that SE Solutions has offered the scholarships.

Purdue University MSCE Students and Scholarship Winners Joey Jones (left) and Ray Chou (middle), with SE Solutions, LLC President Brian Quinn

Ray received his BSCE from Purdue and will be finishing his MSCE this December (2013). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering in the Midwest after graduating. Ray is from New London, Missouri. For additional background on Ray, please see his Linkedin profile athttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/raymond-chou/83/a23/311.

Joey received his BSCE from the University of Washington and will be finishing his MSCE this December (2013). He is interested in finding a position in structural engineering in the Northwest after graduating. Joey is from Ellensburg, Washington. For additional background on Joey, please see his Linkedin profile athttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/joseph-jones/68/450/176.

The rising costs of education and the decrease in funding available through teaching and research assistantships has made it increasingly challenging for students to afford higher education and advanced degrees. SE Solutions is happy to contribute in a small way to help Ray and Joey meet their educational goals, and we look forward to seeing them enhance the structural engineering profession.

SE Solutions hopes to continue providing scholarships to structural engineering students in the future.