Civil engineering student awarded for leadership by national group

Autumn Maher, a University of Cincinnati civil engineering student who will graduate in 2022, was one of just a few students nationwide selected for the 2021 Student Leadership Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), for her leadership and dedication to the UC student chapter.

Maher, who is president of UC ASCE this school year, was nominated for the honor by Abhijeet Deshpande, advisor to the student group and assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management. UC ASCE celebrated 100 years as a campus organization in 2020.

The engineering program and the co-op program are what mainly drove me to UC, but I also was looking for the right size school. I wanted a bigger school, but not somewhere huge. I think I toured maybe 10 or 15 schools. I liked that Cincinnati is a bigger city and there’s a lot to do. I also like that campus is smaller and a little bit more intimate, but there’s still a lot of people. I appreciated that it was a few hours from home in Perrysburg, Ohio, but still close enough that if I needed to go home I could.

At the beginning of freshman year I joined ASCE right away when I attended the organization fair at UC. I applied for an executive position for sophomore year and I was social media chair. I was secretary for my third year, my fourth year I was vice president and this year I will be president. We are really proud that we won the Distinguished Chapter Award for the last three years in a row for our region.

When I was a first-year student, it was my goal to become president and lead the group. Most of our past presidents have been male, so I was also excited to have the younger students look up to a female in that leadership role. 

I’m also involved with the concrete canoe team, which is a branch of ASCE, in leadership roles. I got to go to the national competition two years ago, which was pretty cool to see all the teams from across the country and learn from what they had done that we applied to our next canoe. 

I’m also a member of Chi Epsilon, the civil engineering honor society, and I am part of Mortar Board, which is a university-wide national honor society. I was excited to get nominated and selected because I wanted to get to know more people outside of engineering at UC. I was the vice president last year. 

I really think that being on co-op and having the leadership type roles that I've been able to have in my projects has helped me to be a leader in student organizations. I also think being a leader in student organizations has helped me to take on leadership roles on co-op as well, so I've enjoyed being involved in things outside of class.

I’ve also made connections through ASCE. When Covid started, my start date with Marathon was pushed back for six weeks and I had nothing to do until then. I reached out the a county engineer in Toledo who was a connection through ASCE and he actually gave me a position with him for those six weeks that I didn’t have a job. 

I’m honored to have this award from an organization that has really shaped a lot of my college career. The award wouldn’t have been possible without the other people I’ve been able to work with on our team and our faculty advisor is really supportive but trusts us to figure everything out. 

Not that you need recognition to do things, but to be noticed for my leadership is a good motivator and it makes me feel even more confident and ready to lead our team this year to try and implement new things and continue to be one of the best chapters in the country.