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When Frezer Ayele ’24 M.S. was growing up in Ethiopia, he liked accompanying his father to his work sites. “I was mixing concrete by hand and saw every component of construction as a child,” he said. Ayele was especially interested in the way a structure took shape. Even then, he knew he wanted to design buildings or roadways or cities – and that he would one day be an engineer.

After earning his bachelor’s degree and working as a design and structural engineer in his hometown of Addis Ababa, he chose the University of New Haven to pursue his master’s degree, drawn to “the civil engineering program, the diversity, and how welcoming the University is to international students."

He found a mentor in his adviser Byungik Chang, Ph.D., P.E., MBA, professor and chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. “Professor Chang’s support is endless,” said Ayele. “Having someone there who helps you navigate through everything is very crucial when you are newcomer to a country.”

Ayele took a heavy course load and interned this summer at , an engineering consulting firm in New Haven.

Professor Chang encouraged Ayele and other Tagliatela College of Engineering (TCoE) students to apply for scholarships from the Connecticut chapter of the . Recently, Ayele was awarded a $3,000 scholarship, the highest award given. Gabriella Zint ’24 and Emilia Wypasek ’26 each won $2,500 scholarships.

‘Stellar students’

It was the third year in a row that students from the University’s Tagliatela College of Engineering took home half of the CMAA Connecticut chapter scholarships.

Dr. Chang said he believes that success has come because “our department faculty provide students with the technologies and software currently used by the industry. We invite professionals in for seminars and resume-review events for our students to understand their perspectives and the current trends in civil, environmental and construction engineering, and management. We also encourage our students to interact with industry by participating in professional society meetings.”

Dr. Chang said all of the recipients are stellar students. “Frezer is one of our teaching assistants, and he has shown outstanding professionalism,” Dr. Chang said. “We are so lucky to have him in the program. One of his strengths is to ‘ask and learn.’ While some students are too shy to ask, Frezer has exhibited very active interaction with instructors by asking questions.”

“Gabriella has received an A+ in most of her classes since her first year,” Dr. Chang continued. “Her assignment solutions are well written all the time and I use them as sample solutions very frequently.

“Emilia is one of the best sophomores in the bachelor’s degree program in civil engineering,” Dr. Chang added. “She is one of the (civil engineering honor society) student chapter members. Although she is a sophomore, she already has an internship offer from , one of largest civil engineering firms in the U.S. This will be her second internship.”

“It is the department’s honor to have these students in our program,” Dr. Chang concluded.

‘These fields are forever evolving’

Wypasek said she was “quite excited” to receive the award. “It just goes to show that if you put the work and effort into something, you can achieve it,” she said. She likes that civil engineering is math focused and that her professors continually emphasize applying those math concepts “to real-world problems.”

Zint said she was proud to receive the scholarship “because I felt that my hard work during my time at the University was being acknowledged within a professional capacity. It is important to me because the CMAA is all about continuing education and becoming the best qualified professional within the fields of construction management and civil engineering. This is something that I hold in great value because these fields are forever evolving, and there is always a need for up-to-date processes that can only be learned by continuing education.”

Zint, who will pursue her master’s in civil engineering at the University after completing her bachelor’s degree next spring, looks forward to a career in civil engineering, with a focus on ethical and sustainable-based designs.

Ayele said he was happy to share the news of his scholarship with his parents. “They couldn’t believe how far I’ve gotten in the past year,” he said.

He looks forward to creating structures or redesigning aspects of cities to positively impact the people who live and work there. “I like building something that is going to last,” he said.