Abstract
Civil engineers are responsible for building the world we live in. From the sidewalks we walk on, to the buildings in which we live and work, every part of the built environment has a civil engineer behind it. Despite the real social impacts that this work has, the discipline of engineering is frequently seen as being purely technical, overlooking how these technical decisions shape people’s lives. For my technical capstone and sociotechnical thesis, I wanted to explore how infrastructure and our built environment can perpetuate societal inequity. I accomplished this through my technical capstone, a design project where we focused on compiling a full sheet set for a proposed daycare, and my sociotechnical thesis, a research paper where I focused explicitly on how large-scale transportation infrastructure projects have been historically used as a tool of segregation in America.
My technical capstone project paired a team consisting of myself and three other civil engineering students with industry mentors from Timmons Group’s Charlottesville office. Our assignment was to create a full drawing set for a daycare project associated with Martha Jefferson Hospital. The purpose of the daycare was to provide value to healthcare workers working at the hospital, connecting a social need with my group’s technical skills. Our technical project spanned two semesters consisting of weekly meetings with our mentors to check in on our progress and help us learn new skills. Our completed sheet set consisted of 18 pages, including plan sheets for the site layout, demolition, grading, erosion and sediment control and stormwater management. We also provided profiles for the utilities and storm sewers. At the end of our second semester, we presented our work to our industry and faculty members and took part in a poster symposium with other civil engineering capstone groups.
My sociotechnical thesis examines transportation infrastructure as a political technology that reinforces racial and economic segregation in the United States. Using Langdon Winner’s framework of political technologies, I analyze how large-scale infrastructure and urban renewal projects have embedded a system of racial order in American cities. The primary case study is Charlottesville, Virginia, where decades of urban renewal policies resulted in the complete destruction of three Black neighborhoods, the effects of which continue to shape the city today. This case is connected to broader cases across the United States, including in Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta. This paper concludes by suggesting a path forward for engineers and planners, identifying potential mechanisms for embedding equity rather than injustice in future projects.
Through these two projects, I feel that I successfully explored both the technical and social aspects of civil engineering, gaining a deeper understanding of the discipline that I will carry into my career. With my sociotechnical thesis, I contributed to a larger body of research within the field of Science, Technology, and Society that seeks to reconcile the technical and social impacts of engineering decision making. With my capstone, I served a primarily technical role, while also balancing the social and environmental impacts of the work I was doing.
I would like to thank Mack Fain and Scott Kirby, our mentors at Timmons, for an amazing year of support for our technical capstone project. I would also like to thank Donna Chen, our faculty mentor. Our mentors taught us so much throughout this project, and we absolutely could not have done it without them. I would also like to thank Professor Seabrook and Professor Elliott, my two STS professors, for their feedback on my sociotechnical prospectus and thesis.
