Members and faculty advisors of GT-ASCE pose with their awards at the final ceremony of the 2025 Southeastern ASCE Student Symposium at the University of Georgia. (Photo: GT-ASCE)
The Georgia Tech chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) was ranked No. 2 out of 19 teams at the 2025 ASCE Student Symposium.
The Symposium, held March 6-8 at the University of Georgia, brought students from universities around the Southeast together to compete in a variety of civil engineering-related events.
The Georgia Tech chapter finished second in the overall rankings after competing in 15 events, according to conference chair David Sparks. Sparks noted that the team finished in the top three in nine of the 18 competitions and in the top five for 13 of the 18 events.
"I'm very proud of the impressive performance of our student chapter this year. All 61 students and the three faculty who attended contributed to these amazing results,” Sparks said. “This is the third year in a row where we have seen an improvement in our overall ranking, so we are looking forward to continuing this upward trend next year.”
The members of the GT-ASCE Sustainable Solutions team, led by Phoebe Ellis, pose with their first-place win plaque at the awards ceremony. (Photo courtesy GT-ASCE)
The chapter also continued its dominance in the Sustainable Solutions competition for the third year running. The Sustainable Solutions Competition challenges students to address real-world issues with creative engineering solutions.
In this year’s competition, the fictional “City of ASCE” formed a public-private partnership to acquire a parcel with a five-story commercial office building for mixed-use redevelopment. The teams were required to use the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision framework to achieve sustainability goals.
The GT-ASCE Mini Prestressed Beam work on building the wooden form for their beam at the 2025 Southeastern ASCE Student Symposium in Athens. (Photo courtesy GT-ASCE)
The GT-ASCE entry, “Blossom Borough,” won first place. The team will advance to the ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships at California Polytechnic State University in June. Georgia Tech will be defending the championship after winning first prize in 2023 and 2024.
Faculty advisor and Professor of the Practice Fred Meyer praised the efforts of the Mini Prestressed Beam team, whose team captain had to withdraw due to an injury the week before the competition. Assistant team captain Ty Vasquez, assisted by Shreya Jayaram and Abel Yarad, stepped in to lead the team to a second-place finish in the event.
“Our CEE students were wonderful ambassadors of Georgia Tech through the entire symposium,” Meyer said. “Many teams overcame tremendous challenges finishing consistently strong to bring home Second Place Overall in a challenging field of19 schools.”
Here are the results from the events in which GT-ASCE placed in the top three:
First Place:
- Sustainable Solutions, led by Phoebe Ellis
Second Place:
- Surveying, led by Samantha Hobbs
- Prestressed Mini Beam, led by Gabriel Ackall
- Student Symposium Paper, delivered by Fidan Savalan
- T-shirt Design, led by Peter Grafstein
- Mystery Event, Jackie Zong and Krish Gupta
Third Place:
- Timber Strong, led by Andy Lainez
- Muddy Waters, led by Tyler Rhine
- Concrete Cornhole, led by Teddy Lemire