Conduit Study Wins Capstone Expo Award

A team of students whose project focused on Baltimore’s aging conduit system won the Civil and Environmental Engineering departmental award at the inaugural Capstone Design Expo, held on May 1.

Working under the guidance of Professor Deb Niemeier, the Clark Distinguished Chair in Energy and Sustainability, seniors Thilini Amarasinghe, Jeremiah Hannon, Daniela Martinez-Ramos, and Owen Schweitzer presented an alternative approach to upgrading the conduit along the city’s Central Avenue. Their proposal, Alternative Central Avenue Conduit System, would retain the existing conduit, while supplementing it with an addition that would meet current and future utility needs.

Will Sigafoose, senior project manager at Allan Myers, served as client contact for the project, developed over the course of a year-long capstone course.

The Expo brought more than 500 seniors from across Maryland Engineering’s aerospace, civil and environmental,mechanical, and bioengineering programs to present their capstone projects. Civil and environmental engineering senior projects ranged fromcheat index and power outage emergency frameworks to analysis of roadway infrastructure, to “cooler” solutions for bus stop design in Washington, D.C.

“The students are eager to show what they’ve accomplished, not only solving engineering problems but helping to solve ethical and social issues, too,” said Nii O. Attoh-Okine, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, ahead of the event. “It’s not all about profit, but it’s about answering the question, ‘how did we touch others with our design’?”

Michael Galczynski ’12, an instructor for the Clark School’s Keystone Program, served as a CEE project judge. “With this Expo, it’s great to catch up with the students I first met three or four years ago and see them bring their knowledge and experiences full circle,” he said.

To learn more about the 2024 Capstone Design Expo and the winning teams from all participating departments, check out our full coverage here.

Published June 3, 2024