letter from the seakm president

Structural engineering is facing many challenges in the new era, and the recent pandemic is not the only one. Climate change, fast developing technologies, and ever changing natural and social environments are all forcing us to rethink our profession. We cannot cope with these individually. As the President of SEAKM, I want to bring us together to aspire, advance, and advocate structural engineering.

New challenges bring more difficulties, but they can provide opportunities as well. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us learned how to work remotely, learn virtually, and communicate more efficiently. For the past few years, SEAKM Bi-State and local chapter boards strived to serve our members in many different ways. We provided flexibility to our members by hosting hybrid meetings, revamped SEAKM website including Member Zone with valuable resources, created the SEAKM quarterly newsletter, Connections, and social media outposts, and outreached college and K-12 students via NCSEA sponsored Mola Model Initiative, to name a few. I look forward to working with our dedicated Bi-State and local chapter boards to better serve all SEAKM members. The following is a list I believe we can focus on this year.

Young Member Group(s)

Young members are the future of structural engineering. They are making their transition from college graduates to professional engineers. Coordinating with NCSEA Young Member Support Committee, we would like to form SEAKM Young Member Group(s), and foster a favorable environment to help them acquire licenses and boost their career.

Outreach Colleague Students, and K-12 Schools

We will continue our support to student groups, such as the K-State Student Chapter, which has been very active for many years. We would like to revive and create more student chapters at other institutions. We will continue and extend our efforts on outreaching K-12 schools and help cultivate interests in structural engineering among pre-college students.

Awards and Scholarships

Good structural engineering brings great value to projects, clients, and society. We would like to revive our award programs and promote engineering excellence. We will continue providing scholarships to student chapters.

Advocating Structural Engineering

Structural engineering greatly affects people’s daily lives. To emphasize the importance of our work, we need to raise structural engineering awareness. With the resources from NCSEA’s “We SEE Above & Beyond Campaign”, we can help with “telling the structural engineering story.”

Most importantly, I would love to hear your feedback on how SEAKM can improve. Together, we can overcome the challenges.

Thank you,

Bill Zhang, Ph.D., PE, SE, LEED AP

SEAKM Bi-State President (2023 - 2024)