girl” with an abiding love of designer shoes, she can scamper in high heels, transition from casual to formal in a blink, do the salsa and the merengue, and in general, enjoys a jet-set life. One of her goals — already deep into the process of being achieved — is to shatter the stereotype that important engineers can only be men, and that women aren’t cut out for the work of building bridges and skyscrapers. She chronicles her social and business lives on her Instagram account, where she has more than 550 followers. Last fall, she appeared in Seoul, South Korea, where she spoke about research on seismic activ- ity, and traveled to New Orleans, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Nashville. But beneath the glamour is the capacity for work and the drive to suc- ceed. She proved to herself that anything was possible back in Austin while working on her doctorate. She dropped her hard drive in De- cember 2012, losing all the data for her dissertation. Consternation, of course, but then she regrouped, recreating everything from scratch and finishing her studies by May 2013. “I lived in a 24-hour coffee shop,” she said of the effort it took to reproduce her doctoral thesis: Incorporating Site Response Analysis and Associated Uncertainties into the Seismic Hazard Assessment of Nuclear Facilities. While her friends and family back home might have been concerned, coming to the United States sight-unseen was never a problem for Pehlivan. Arriving on an extremely hot and humid day in Austin in 2009, she was ready for the adventure, even if her luggage had been lost in transit. Soon finding herself in an international circle of friends, UT-Austin more than sufficed as the place to hang her hat. “I was never homesick,” she said. In New York, when she worked in the Geo-Seismic Department at Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, she lived on the Upper West Side — Lincoln Center, Central Park, Michelin-starred cuisine — and loved the city. But when an opportunity to work at CH2M presented itself, she left for Seattle. Considered by many a destination, the Pacific Northwest might just be a stop along the way for Pehlivan. For now, however, life with CH2M-Seattle is good — snow- boarding in the Cascade Mountains, oysters on the half-shell right out of Puget Sound, world-class nightlife and cultural attractions, and plenty of professional challenges with important, complex projects. But for Pehlivan, is there something else out there other than a mega- firm and the opportunities it enables? “It’s not the only way to be known in the industry,” she said. “It’s not the only career path.”
Résumé synopsis Menzer Pehlivan, Ph.D., P.E., is a geotechnical engineer who specializes in the analysis of site response, liquefaction and other natural hazards, soil-foundation-structure interaction, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), and the seismic design of foundations for bridges, nuclear facilities, and other structures. She has been actively involved with pioneering research projects advancing the state-of-art and state-of-practice of geotechnical earthquake engineering. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Select projects • Tacoma All Hazards Vulnerability Assessment, Tacoma Water (Tacoma, Wash.) — Seismic evaluation of Hood Street facilities, Tacoma Pump Station, and Water Operations Building for the City of Tacoma. Performed geotechnical field investigations, site-specific seismic site response, and seismic hazard analysis. • Rock Creek Reservoir Intake Replacement (Corvallis, Ore.) — Replacement of existing failing intake structure for the 4.5 million-gallons-per-day design capacity Rock Creek Water Treatment Plant. Performed deterministic seismic hazard analysis for the new intake structure. • Puyallup River Flood Risk Mitigation (Puyallup, Wash.) — Feasibility study for potential flood risk mitigation measures in the Puyallup River Basin. Identified critical sections along 18-mile-long levee segments, performed stability analysis for proposed levee and flood wall sections, and evaluated preliminary liquefaction hazards. • Anchorage Port Modernization Project (Anchorage, Alaska) — Developed representative dynamic soil profiles and estimated seismic ground motions via equivalent linear site response analyses. • Seismic and Wind Investigation at RFK Bridge (New York City) — Estimated seismic ground motions and seismic design loads at the bridge piers, performed soil- structure interaction analyses for the bridge piers, and evaluated liquefaction potential and seismic-induced settlement at bridge piers. • Seismic Engineering Services for Torre Reforma 432 (Mexico City, Mexico) — Performed site-specific PSHA, calculated seismic design ground motions, estimated soil-structure interaction effects, and evaluated seismically induced settlements at the site. Source: Menzer Pehlivan
RICHARD MASSEY is director of newsletters and special publications at Zweig Group and editor of The Zweig Letter. He can be reached at rmassey@zwieiggroup.com.
18
csengineermag.com
february 2018
Made with FlippingBook Annual report