Perspectives
Volaree Rendon’s career in civil engineering started with a crush. A straight-A high school student in Seattle, Rendon earned enough credits to spend part of her junior and senior years at a local vocational technical...
Perspectives Recent Articles
Louisiana is no stranger to devastating storms and floods, but you’d never know it every February when New Orleans erupts in Mardi Gras, a festival of sound and color flavored with boisterous parades, jazz, and spicy crawfish boils. Locals know...
James Bowles has always loved building things. As a child, he spent hours with Lego, piecing together miniature cities brick by brick. As a teenager, he became fascinated by skyscrapers—their design, engineering, and sheer scale. It wasn’t just their height...
Some 25,000 people recently flocked to San Jose, California, for Nvidia’s GTC AI Conference. Informally known as “AI Woodstock,” the event featured Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who talked about the semiconductor giant’s latest AI chips, and AI pioneers and luminaries...
I recently joined a room full of energetic infrastructure professionals for the release of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Report Card for U.S. infrastructure. Released every four years, the report gives an overall grade for U.S. infrastructure, as...
When an 8-mile stretch of upgraded highway opens in the Rocky Mountains in 2028, it will ease congestion and improve safety for Colorado’s mountain resort communities and the thousands of tourists heading to the slopes each ski season. The Floyd...
New Orleans is home to awe-inspiring music, food and street parties. But let’s not forget equally awe-inspiring infrastructure, which keeps the Big Easy dry. That was evident in early March when New Orleans entered “Deep Gras,” the boisterous coda to...
Many engineers have stories of meetings getting off to a rocky start. For Victoria Fillingham, one began with being mistaken for the coffee server. “I’ve seen a big change,” she says, “but I can tell you stories about being the...
Railways and the steam engine. Few inventions better symbolize England’s role as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. The country’s first railroad opened in 1825, using Robert Stephenson’s steam locomotive, the Locomotion No. 1, along the 25-mile (40-kilometer) Stockton and...
Clarity is invaluable for a project as staggeringly complex as the international fusion experiment. The project, also known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), is being built in France and is one of the most ambitious scientific collaborations in...
If Joe Carr’s life were a Fighting Fantasy book—the well-thumbed Choose Your Own Adventure series that lines his bookshelves—it might begin like this: Before you lies a branching path. Every step a challenge, every choice a puzzle. Do you reason...