Student of the Year Award
2019-2020 Recipient
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High-ResVanessa McEntee
Vanessa McEntee is an engineer with Reaveley Engineers in Salt Lake City, UT, where she designs and retrofits commercial buildings, airports and hospitals. She is also continuing work on her master's degree in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah, expecting to graduate in May 2020.
Her research focuses on the repair and retrofit of concrete structures with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) to increase the seismic resiliency of communities. In her thesis work, she found that concrete wall piers that had been retrofitted or repaired with CFRP had increased load capacity and were better able to dissipate seismic energy. The research will improve safety of bridges and provides a more rapid and cost effective repair technique for those that have been damaged.
McEntee earned her bachelors in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Utah. She served as an undergraduate and graduate research assistant there, working on structural rehabilitation research projects. In 2015, she was a construction engineering intern with the Utah Department of Transportation and in 2016 she was a roadway design intern with HDR Inc. She also mentored three undergraduate research assistants while at the University of Utah.
In 2019, she presented her work in a poster presentation to members of the U.S. Senate. She also explained her work in presentations to the Engineering Mechanics Institute in Pasadena and at the Utah Department of Transportation Annual Conference.
