While we were not able to gather in person to celebrate these new members and their accomplishments, we were able to have a virtual ceremony with videos introducing these new members.

These distinguished graduates are recognized for expertise in their fields, research and education advancements and strong leadership qualities. The 2020 honorees are Frank Carmichael, Neil Graff, Beth Gross, Chi-Kao Hsu, Clifford Randall, Carin Roberts-Wollmann and Anton Schindler.

The department established the Academy of Distinguished Alumni to acknowledge the professional achievements and contributions of its graduates. Twenty-seven charter members were inducted into the academy in 2003, and over 125 additional members have been selected since.

Bob Gilbert, Chair of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, says, “We are very proud of our alumni. We tell our students that they are privileged to be a part of this community and that is because of how successful our alumni have been.”

2020 Academy of Distinguished Alumni Members

Frank Carmichael

Senior Project Manager, HVJ Associates, Inc.

B.S., The University of Texas at Austin, 1973
M.S., The University of Texas at Austin, 1975

Frank Carmichael was born in Brady, McCulloch County, Texas and graduated from the Brady Independent School system in the top 10 of his class. He was a member of the National Honor Society and participated in the High School Band and Golf Team. He was also a member of Boy Scout Troop 402 and obtained the rank of Eagle Scout. The Brady Rotary Club selected him to participate in a Bi-District youth Conference in Mexico, and the Texas Farm Bureau selected him to attend a Citizenship Conference at Baylor University. Carmichael earned his B.S. with honors in 1973 and his M.S. at The University of Texas at Austin.

While at the University, he worked at the Center for Highway Research during the academic year and at the Brady Residency of the Brownwood District of the Texas Highway Department each summer. This gave him a strong foundation in the theoretical and practical aspects of highway engineering. He was a member of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers and organized a student trip to see the initial construction of the new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). He was selected to the Chi Epsilon Honorary Civil Engineering fraternity and was elected president his last year before graduation. He completed his thesis on “Modification and Implementation of the Rigid Pavement Design System” in 1974. Upon graduation, he went to work at Austin Research Engineers, Inc., and his early years were spent working on research projects for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) and the World Bank. He completed and co-authored numerous research projects, including work on the 1993 AASHTO Pavement Design Guide, NCHRP Report 300, “Bridge Management Systems,” and NCHRP Report 285, “Evaluating Deferred Maintenance Strategies.” He also implemented pavement management systems and studies for state and local governments nationwide.

He has worked internationally on projects in the Netherlands, Bolivia, Argentina, Nigeria, and Malaysia. He rose to the rank of president of the firm. Carmichael has spent his career focused on transportation engineering, having completed pavement design projects for street, road, highway, toll road, airport and port projects. He has also completed project designs for mass transit authorities in the area of alternative fuels for compressed natural gas refueling stations. He has continued to develop pavement evaluation and design systems. Several of his projects have been recognized and won awards. He has been an active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Texas Society of Professional Engineers and the American Public Works Association. He has also been active with the Capital Area Boy Scouts of America as a boy scout leader and scoutmaster of Troop 5 and volunteered at 3 National Jamborees. He is a 30-year member and Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club of Austin and is a graduate of the Leadership Austin program. He has been married for 44 years to Vicki Cain Carmichaelof Houston, Texas (B.S. Department of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977). They have one son, James Brady Carmichael (B.S. Joe Jackson School of Geophysics, 2000).

Neil Graff

Senior Vice President, HDR Engineering, Inc.

B.S., The University of Texas at Austin, 1988

Neil Graff has built a career that is dedicated to improving our communities, protecting our environment, and increasing the resiliency of public infrastructure. A leader in implementing water and wastewater projects, Neil has also helped communities implement many groundbreaking projects for all types of infrastructure. A fifth-generation Texan born in Hondo, Texas, Neil graduated with High Honors from The University of Texas in 1988 with a B.S. in civil engineering. After college, Neil joined Turner Collie and Braden, Inc., where he worked on various water supply and flood control projects. In 1991, Neil joined HDR, Inc., where he has served as HDR’s Texas Water program lead, Central Texas assistant area manager and regional director of operations for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Neil’s current assignment as domestic operations director includes operational responsibility for the firm’s US architectural and engineering practices.

In January 2021, Neil will assume the role of North American operations director and will join HDR’s executive leadership team. Throughout his career, Neil has led large projects, including the design of the Twin Oaks Water Treatment Plant, which is part of the San Antonio Water System’s Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program. He has also been involved in several large infrastructure projects, including serving as HDR’s principal in charge for the IH 35 Managed Lanes Project, a design-build project that expanded the roadway corridor from Loop 635 in Dallas to Denton, Texas. In 2000, Neil was recognized by HDR as a professional associate and was honored as the Young Engineer of the Year by the Travis Chapter of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He has also served as chair of the AWWA National Water Treatment Plant Design and Construction Committee, as a board member of the Texas Chapter of the American Consulting Engineer’s Council, and in various other industry leadership positions. Neil is married to Stacy Graff, and they have two daughters, Sarah and Rebekah. Neil has volunteered widely in his community, including serving in his church, the Dripping Springs community and various mission work across Texas. Neil and Stacy are supporters of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Scleroderma Foundation and members of the Presidential Circle at the University of Mary Hardin Baylor, where they created the Graff Family Endowed Scholarship for Nursing and Christian Studies majors.

Beth Gross

Vice Principal, Geosyntec Consultants

Chi-Kao Hsu

Owner, SEFBO Pipeline Bridge, Inc.

Ph.D., The University of Texas, 1983
M.S., The University of Texas, 1979
B.S., National Taiwan University, 1974

Chi-Kao Hsu is a prominent engineer and entrepreneur within the Austin community. As the CEO and president of four different engineering companies and the owner of a large portfolio of commercial and real estate properties, Hsu is a highly successful investor. Chi-Kao enrolled at UT Austin in 1976 as an unsupported graduate student with a B.S. degree in agricultural engineering from Taiwan. He went on to earn his M.S. in civil engineering and Ph.D. in civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1979 and 1983, respectively. Since English was his second language, he carried around a tape recorder to each lesson and would type up the lectures and study all night. When he finished his Ph.D., he taught at San Diego State University for three years.

Eventually, he returned to Austin and started a consulting company specializing in pipeline suspension bridges and servicing other infrastructures. His firm, which is the largest of two in the U.S. that provides this capability, currently has 15 employees. Chi-Kao thrived after graduation, not only as a structural engineer in design and construction but also as a brilliant entrepreneur and businessman. In the summer of 1991, he closed on a 30-unit apartment complex in East Austin, which turned into a successful real estate portfolio. He now owns more than a dozen properties with 250,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. Chi-Kao has supported and served the City of Austin and its schools in many ways. He served as chairman of the Asian Chamber of Commerce in Texas, he is a member of the Longhorn Foundation, and when the Structures Area of the CAEE department at UT Austin was short on civil engineering faculty, he stepped in as an adjunct professor for four years and taught structures and computer programming classes.

Clifford Randall

Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech

Ph.D., The University of Texas, 1966
M.S., University of Kentucky, 1963
B.S., University of Kentucky, 1959

Clifford Randall is the Charles P. Lunsford Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. He joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1968 to help develop the environmental engineering and science program. For more than four decades, he kept a rigorous schedule, teaching generations of environmental engineers, including 96 M.S. and 37 Ph.D. students, while serving in many professional organizations and consulting with wastewater treatment facilities around the world. Born in Somerset, Kentucky, Randall earned his B.S. in civil engineering and his M.S. in civil engineering at the University of Kentucky in 1959 and 1963, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in environmental health engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in 1966.

Randall’s teaching career began at The University of Texas at Austin in 1965. Three years later, he moved east to join the environmental engineering faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where he served as chair of the Environmental Engineering and Sciences programs from 1979-96 and as a professor until 2001, when he attained emeritus status. From 1972 to 2015, Randall served as founder and director of the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory in the National Capital Region, which pioneered suburban and urban non-point pollution research and control, watershed-wide water quality monitoring linked to reservoir water quality responses and evaluation of atmospheric pollutant deposition. With strong expertise in biological nutrient removal, industrial wastewater treatment and water pollution control, he has been involved in the evaluation and design of hundreds of wastewater facilities to reduce nutrient discharge without incurring major increases in operation costs. Randall introduced biological nutrient removal to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in 1984 and worked with the Hampton Roads Sanitation District to develop the public domain patented VIP process for nutrient removal. His efforts have not only led to the modification and operation of many treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay area but also provided cost-effective solutions to improve the performance of treatment facilities in foreign countries, such as South Africa, India, China, Canada and South Korea.

Carin Roberts-Wollmann

Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech

Ph.D., The University of Texas, 1993
M.S., The University of Texas, 1990
B.S., University of Nebraska, 1983

Carin Roberts-Wollmann received her B.S. in civil engineering in 1983 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She was then hired as the first female construction engineer at Austin Bridge Company in Dallas and after two years, was assigned to be the field engineer in San Antonio. In San Antonio, she worked in the casting yard for the precast segmental viaduct being constructed downtown, known as the San Antonio “Y”. This project opened her eyes to all she did not know about structures, so she began her master’s degree at UT in the fall of 1986. She worked with Jack Breen for her master’s thesis and enjoyed research so much that she stayed for her Ph.D. She received her M.S. in 1990 and her Ph.D. in 1993. Carin was the first woman awarded a Ph.D. in the area of structural engineering at UT and is pleased to see the significant number of women who have followed her.

After working in the industry for six years, Carin accepted a position as an assistant professor in the structural engineering and materials program area of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of Virginia Tech in 1999. Today, she is a professor at Virginia Tech, specializing in reinforced and prestressed concrete. She focuses on new materials and construction procedures to enhance the economy, durability, and constructability of concrete bridges and buildings. Carin married fellow Distinguished Academy member Gregor Wollmann in 1993, and they have three grown children: Eric, Stephanie and Jessi. When not breaking things in the lab, she enjoys golfing, skiing, hiking and traveling. Carin Roberts-Wollmann has made many contributions to the advancement of structural engineering and the advancement of women in engineering.

Anton Schindler

Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Auburn University

Ph.D., The University of Texas, 2002
M.S., The University of Texas, 1999
B.S., The University of Pretoria, 1995

Anton Schindler is recognized for excellence in teaching, research and professional service. He is the director of the Highway Research Center and Mountain Spirit Professor at Auburn University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1999 and 2002, respectively. After earning his B.S. in civil engineering, he worked for four years for a structural design firm in Pretoria, South Africa, while he studied to complete an honors degree in structural engineering at the University of Pretoria in 1995. He joined Auburn University as a faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering in 2002 and has worked there since. Under his leadership, the extramural funding for the Highway Research Center has significantly grown, allowing the center to expand its activities. He has twice been selected by students as the department’s Outstanding Faculty Member. He received the Chi Epsilon (Civil Engineering Honor Society) Excellence in Teaching Award for the Southern District in 2008 and the College of Engineering at Auburn University’s Walker Merit Teaching Award in 2012. He was selected to be a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Finland during the spring 2016 semester. During this time, he collaborated with researchers from the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland to develop concrete designed for use in a waste nuclear fuel repository. Schindler has always been willing to share his knowledge of concrete materials with others. His dedication to excellence in engineering education is demonstrated in the thousands of engineers he has trained by developing and delivering workshops and conferences across the United States. © The University of Texas at Austin 2025 | Privacy Policy | Web Accessibility