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Announcing New Board Members for 2020

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The SEAoT Houston Gulf Coast Chapter is pleased to introduce our 2020 Board Members: Emily McCarthy, Joshua White, Sara Buerstinghaus, Daniel Pearson, Jennifer Martin-Logan, Michele DiBassie. The Board provides leadership and direction for the local SEAoT chapter, to promote the structural engineering community and offer opportunities for our members to be involved in continuing education, networking and community outreach opportunities.

President

Emily McCarthy, PhD, PE

Dr. McCarthy is a Consulting Engineer with Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger. She provides new design, investigation and rehabilitation engineering services for the industrial, commercial, residential and marine industries. She received her PhD from Rice University, where she developed a response modification device for modular bridge expansion joints to improve their seismic performance.

Vice President

Joshua White, PE

Joshua White, PE, is a structural engineering consultant at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., an interdisciplinary engineering, architecture, and materials science firm specializing in the evaluation, design, and rehabilitation of new and existing construction. His area of expertise is forensic investigation of various concrete, steel, and wood structures, including buildings, containment structures, equipment foundations, bridges, tunnels, and wharves. Mr. White specializes in the development and application of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) technologies, including but not limited to mechanical wave/vibration, electromagnetic, and electrochemical based techniques utilizing multi-method approaches.

Secretary

Sara Buerstinghaus, PhD, PE

Dr. Buerstinghaus worked as a structural engineer primarily designing steel and concrete residential and commercial structures. Since joining Walker Consultants in 2016, she has performed structural evaluations and forensic analysis to determine the root causes of deficiencies, provide repair packages including cost estimates and asset management plans.

Her graduate research at the Missouri University of Science and Technology focused on experimental and numerical analyses of long carbon fiber-reinforced concrete panels exposed to blast loading.

Treasurer

Daniel Pearson, PE, SE

Since joining WJE in 2017, Daniel Pearson has been involved in the evaluation and repair of concrete, masonry, steel, and wood structures. He has experience performing finite element analysis on a wide range of structures and is experienced with several software packages including Abaqus, SAP2000, and SACS. Prior to joining WJE, Mr. Pearson worked as a structural engineering consultant in the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Pearson’s graduate research at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute focused on evaluating roadside barriers and related hardware. He performed dynamic, nonlinear finite element analysis of vehicle impacts with roadside barriers using LS-DYNA to determine the dynamic response of the roadside system and vehicle.

Director of Member Communications

Jennifer Martin-Logan, PE

Currently a senior design engineer at Whirlwind Steel Buildings, Jennifer has been designing metal buildings large, small, and in-between at various manufacturers since 2002. Prior to being lured into the metal building industry, she has designed tubular steel electrical transmission poles and even spent a couple of years doing structural engineering at an Architecture and Engineering firm. During her college years, when the world wide web was young, she assisted with research on genetic algorithms—both for structural design of concrete beams and for an operations research topic which was a variation of traveling salesman problem.

Director of Member Outreach

Michele DiBassie

Michele is a second-generation entrepreneur and certified paralegal. Her background is in contractual law in the concrete and real estate industries, as well as commercial litigation. In 2001, Michele utilized her paralegal, construction, and management experience to form Structural Concrete Systems, LLC. She developed the form and structure of the company and continues to build on that foundation for success. Michele developed the information management systems, website, and marketing materials for the company and executes all the bidding and contractual activity. SCS has been performing state of the art structural repairs for 18 years, providing innovative solutions and specialized construction means and methods for situations demanding a high standard of performance.