As a partner university, the University of Washington will involve both undergraduate and graduate students in research activities. UW students involved in ABC-UTC research projects or supported by the ABC-UTC will be listed on this page.
Current Students
Alexander Maldonado (BS, Student): Alexander Maldonado is currently an undergraduate research assistant in the Structural Engineering Testing Laboratory at the University of Washington, working with Dr. Travis Thonstad and Dr. Paolo Calvi. He participated in the 2022 LSAMP Scientist Program at UW, where he assisted with large-scale structural testing of panel elements and data analysis. At the end of the program, he gave a poster presentation titled “Shear Behavior of Macro-Synthetic Fiber-Reinforced Concrete” to his fellow students and the wider UW community.
Alec Yuetter (MS, Student): Alec is a graduate research assistant at University of Washington, Seattle. He received his BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington in 2017 and is currently pursuing his masters. His MS thesis is investigating new connections for CFST components using anchorage and bond. This work is primarily experimental, joint with the National Science Foundation and conducted under the supervision of Professor Lehman.
Carolyn Donohoe (MS, Student): Carolyn Donohoe is a structural engineering graduate student at the University of Washington. She received her B.S. in civil engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2018. From 2018 to 2020, Carolyn worked as a staff engineering for Moffatt & Nichol, a marine structures firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently working with Dr. Travis Thonstad investigating the characteristics and implementation of fiber-reinforced polymer concrete for accelerated bridge construction applications.
Danielle Voytko (MS, Student): Danielle Voytko graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2018 and is now a Structural Engineering and Mechanics Master’s student at the University of Washington. She is currently researching the behavior of Ultra High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) when subject to shear loading in a collaborative project with the University of Oklahoma. The main goal of this project is to determine the changes in the response of UHPC due to differences in local materials along with different volumes of steel fibers in the mix design.
Hank Knight (MS, Student): Hank Knight is a structural engineering graduate student in the CEE department at UW. He received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Washington in 2021. He is working with Dr. John Stanton and Dr. Richard Wiebe to study the stability of precast concrete girders during trucking and lifting.
John Paul (JP) Gaston (MS, Student): is a structural engineering graduate student at the University of Washington. He received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Washington in 2021. He is currently working with Dr. Travis Thonstad and Dr. Paolo Calvi experimentally investigating the combined use of distributed macro-synthetic fibers and deformed bar reinforcement to resist shear forces.
Muzi Zhao (PhD, Student): When he was an undergraduate student, Muzi Zhao worked as a structural engineer intern at Shenzhen Li Peng Structural Engineering Technology Co., Ltd. in 2013 and 2014. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in 2015, and continued to study in HIT as a PhD student until now. He researched in University of Washington (UW) as a visiting PhD student from 2019 to 2020.
Michelle Chang (MS, Student): Michelle was an MS student studying structural engineering at the University of Washington. She received her B.S. in Civil Engineering from Princeton University (2016) with a joint focus on structures and architecture. From 2016 to 2018, Michelle worked as a project engineer for Kiewit at the Los Angeles Rams/Chargers Stadium, where she ran on-site precast concrete operations. She then worked with Professors John Stanton and Marc Eberhard on the High Speed Rail project.
Nicolette Lewis (PhD, Student): Nicolette is a graduate research assistant at the University of Washington, Seattle. She received her bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering from California Polytechnic State University in 2017. After interning with Arup Group, she started at the University of Washington pursuing a MS in Structural Mechanics. She is currently working under the supervision of Dr. Marc Eberhard and Dr. Mike Motley investigating debris impact forces and consequent damming forces against coastal bridge structural systems during tsunami events.
Spencer Lindsley (MS, Student): Spencer Lindsley is a graduate student at the University of Washington. He received his BSCE from the University of Maine in 2019. He is interested in bridge engineering. He plans to graduate in Spring 2021.
Former Students
Taneum Luciani (BS, 2019): Beginning in 2018, Taneum was an undergraduate researcher In the structural engineering laboratory at the University of Washington with a concentration in structural engineering. He completed his BSCE in 2019. He contributed the ABC project on CFT pier-pile connections. The majority of his experimental work focused on the instrumentation of the test specimens and has an individual research project investigating the fracture energy of concrete, which is a critical modeling parameter for systems relying on bond and anchorage for force transfer. This work was joint with the National Science Foundation and conducted under the supervision of Professor Lehman.