By Ines Aviles-Spadoni, M.S., M.A., UFTI Research & Communications Coordinator
This spring, Sara Garces will graduate from UF with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and will enter the professional world, working as a roadway engineer at HNTB’s Boston, Massachusetts office. During her undergraduate studies, she was drawn to transportation engineering because of her interest in the built environment, the field she eventually chose to specialize in, and she is ready to take her passion to the real world.
“I felt that working in the civil engineering field would be a great way to combine my love for math, design, and improving the day-to-day lives of people in a way that is impactful and tangible,” Garces said. “I like transportation engineering because it’s always a little bit overlooked, but when things work right, it makes a world of a difference.”
Garces has always been interested in transportation, urban planning, and public transportation, and while she will begin her career in roadway design, she sees value in working with professionals in this area.
“I love public transportation and efficient systems, I love urban planning, and although I will start my career in roadway design, it’s a great opportunity to be around professionals that work in those areas.” she said. “I also really enjoy the CAD work and geometric math involved in roadway design.”
For the past few semesters, Garces has been involved in a project with Xilei Zhao, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UF Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, on wildfire emergency management platforms. As part of her honors thesis, Garces has been tasked with the literature review for a project funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Zhao reflects on her students’ talent.
“Sara has always been a dedicated researcher, driven by a deep passion for her work and a genuine commitment to making a positive impact on society,” Zhao said.
Specifically, she is looking for studies related to digital tools, platforms, and applications that have been developed to aid in wildfire disasters.
“One of the most impactful things that I found while researching this is that many platforms that have been developed are simply not available (over half of the papers I found describe platforms that do not exist, were abandoned projects, or are discontinued),” Garces said. “It takes a lot of time, effort, and funds to maintain a platform active.”
Garces added that even with the ever-increasing prevalence of wildfire disasters, maintaining an active management platform is still a barrier to the availability of these tools. Additionally, many of the studies she encountered all focus on the response stage and don’t consider others, such as mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
The NIST project has real-world implications as the innovative strategies developed from this research will inform researchers and practitioners to create improved life-saving emergency management applications. Zhao explains these implications.
“The NIST-funded research has enabled us to develop the next-generation wildfire emergency management platform, which is ready to be implemented and deployed in different communities across the nation,” she said.
While Garces enjoyed working on the NIST project with Zhao, learning the subject matter and the scientific terminology associated with wildlife disaster management proved to be complex.
“The biggest challenge was getting very familiar with the subject matter and understanding varied terminology that I hadn’t encountered before, while also managing large amounts of data to be synthesized and summarized in meaningful ways,” she said. “The best way to overcome this was asking for help.”
Outside of her academic and research responsibilities, Garces has made a significant and impactful contribution through her involvement with the UF WTS Gator Student Chapter. Serving as its president, Garces hit the ground running and resurrected the struggling student chapter, which had been dormant during the pandemic.
“The club had been dormant for years, and this allowed me to take matters into my own hands and create the student organization I wish I had when I was starting out in the field,” she said. “I had help from the entire WTS executive board, but especially from my friends Kayla Eusebio (outgoing Vice President) and Ayame Soejima (outgoing Treasurer), who were there from the very beginning. The three of us had a vision for what we wanted to achieve, and I think we did pretty well.”
Along with her executive board, she organized general body meetings, invited guest transportation and planning professionals to speak, and planned the chapter’s signature event – the WTS Transportation Symposium, which focused on Complete Streets.
“It took a lot of effort to plan, but we were rewarded by such insightful speakers and an attentive audience made up of much of the WTS, ITE, and SNU student body,” Garces said. “Another great event was the joint social with Students for New Urbanism. It was awesome to get together and get to know each other better in a non-academic setting.”
As Garces gets ready to graduate this spring, she carries her passion for transportation and leadership experience through WTS to her roadway engineer job at HNTB in Boston, and she is ready to make an impact in the world of transportation.