The Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering is excited to welcome its new members into the Academy of Distinguished Alumni for 2022.
ROBERT B. ANDERSON I M.S. 1988
Bob Anderson is a senior bridge professional, registered in seven states, with over 37 years of diverse design engineering and management experience, and instrumental in the successful delivery of design projects. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from South Dakota State University, and his M.S. in 1988 from The University of Texas. He worked as a structural engineer, and eventually became the Vice President of AECOM Corporation. His experience includes preliminary and final design of bridges and associated structures in both steel and concrete, including grade separations, multi-level, interchanges, viaducts, water crossings, and encompasses segmental concrete, long-span cable-stayed, delivered with conventional and alternate contracting methods. This technical expertise is enhanced and complimented by active participation in several committees of the American Concrete Institute and through the authoring of many technical articles.
ANDREA R.H. CHENG I M.S. 2001, PH.D. 2004
Andrea Cheng is the Commissioner for the City of Chicago Department of Water Management, one of the largest water utilities in the U.S. Cheng attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while interning as an engineer trainee at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. After receiving her BS with Honors in Civil Engineering in 1998, she began her graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant, Teaching Assistant, and Laboratory Manager. In 2001, she earned her Masters degree and Ph.D. in 2004 in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She has been a member of AWWA since 1997 and has been actively involved in Illinois Section AWWA activities including serving previously as Chair of the Young Professionals Steering Committee and District 2 Trustee. She was also on the 2010 and 2016 Annual Conference and Exhibition Local Planning Committees. She is a Project Advisory Committee member and Department Liaison for the Water Research Foundation.
DAMON A. DAVIS I B.S. 1996
Damon Davis is a first-generation college graduate, earning his BS degree in Civil Engineering with High Honors from the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering in 1996. He was very active during his time at UT, including serving as President of Tau Beta Pi, and was also the recipient of the John A. Focht Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Civil Engineering After graduation, Damon immediately went to work for ExxonMobil USA as a Project Engineer in Houston, Texas. He quickly rose through the ranks at ExxonMobil, serving in a variety of technical, planning, and leadership positions, and is now a Global Crude Trading Manager there.
Davis has been very involved with UT over the years as a recruiter, a presenter, and a mentor. He and his wife Amy are also strong financial supporters of the Cockrell School and CAEE Department, having endowed a Presidential Scholarship and a Student Scholarship, and an Excellence Fund.
NORMAN D. DENNIS, JR I PH.D. 1982
As a Professor and Associate Dean at the University of Arkansas, Norm Dennis is committed to making civil engineering at Arkansas a well-recognized educational program. In addition to fostering technical excellence in teaching and receiving multiple teaching awards at Arkansas, Dennis has committed to helping the broader Civil Engineering education community through his extensive committee work in the American Society of Civil Engineers, including serving as Chair of the ASCE Committee on Education which manages constituent committees relating to accreditation, faculty development and public outreach.
Dennis received both his B.S. and M.S. in civil engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla, as well as a secondary M.S. in Business Administration from Boston University. He then studied geotech at the University of Texas, graduating with a Ph.D. in 1982. A career educator, he taught 12 years at the US Military Academy prior to the 25 years spent at the University of Arkansas.
SCOT T. SANDERS I M.S. 2000
Scot Sanders serves as Chief Operations Officer for The Broaddus Companies leading all operations and execution, and advocating for owners to improve the building process. Broaddus & Associates is a service-disabled veteran owned business that advocates for facility owners improving capital design and construction process. He served over 22 years in the U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps, where he became Commanding Officer, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) FIVE, and the Director of Operations for Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Hawaii. Scot holds a B.S in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University, an M.S in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas and is a graduate of the Kellogg School of Business Advanced Executive Program, Northwestern University. He is a life-time member of the Texas A&M Letterman’s Association, a member of the Society of American Military Engineers, and the Military Order of the World Wars.
DANIEL K. STEUSSY I B.S. 1978, M.S. 1980
Dan Steussy owns and operates Opterra, Inc, in California, which he began in 1989. The company provides a variety geotechnical engineering services across Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico. Opterra’s primary focus is in providing forensic engineering services for a wide range of clients, both defendants and plaintiffs.
Steussy graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 with a master’s degree in geotechnical engineering and a minor in business law, following the completion of his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1978. In addition to his long-term dedication to the geotechnical engineering profession, he has devoted a similar amount of time, effort, and passion to an important community activity: mediation, conflict resolution, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR), where the objective is to peacefully resolve conflicts as they are developing, as they are on-going, or after they have progressed to litigation or violence. He has been a mediator and board member with the National Conflict Resolution Center.
C. MICHAEL WALTON I PH.D. 1971
C. Michael Walton is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering and holds the Ernest H. Cockrell Centennial Chair Emeritus in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). For more than 50 years he has pursued a career in transport systems engineering and policy analysis. Currently Dr. Walton has a research or consulting relationship with several international universities, several public and private firms, and serves as a member on several Boards of Directors of both public and privately held companies.
Walton was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1993, and has served in a number of leadership positions in esteemed organizations such as the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Executive Committee. He chaired the Advisory Council on Transportation Statistics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
SHIN-TOWER WANG I M.S. 1982, PH.D. 1986
As the engineering manager/president with Ensoft, Inc., Dr. Shin-Tower Wang has been in charge of the development of engineering software projects. He has co-authored several well-accepted computer programs that are currently used by the industry for the static and dynamic analyses of single and group piles, design of flexible retaining structures, and analyses of offshore pipe lines and riser.
Wang has a strong academic background in both the geotechnical and structural engineering fields. His research interests are in soil-structure-interaction analysis, deep foundation design, and numerical analysis using finite-element and finite-difference methods. He has been actively engaged in a variety of consulting projects on deep foundations especially for offshore platforms, large-scale wind farms, long-span bridges, ports and container terminators in the U.S. and abroad, and development of well-recognized engineering software. He is the author/coauthor of one text book and more than forty papers/research publications on foundation engineering.
Starting from top left: Norm Dennis, Shin-Tower Wang, Damon Davis, Dan Steussy, Scot Sanders, Andrea Cheng, Michael Walton, Robert Anderson
Photo by: Alejandro Luevano
