Alumni Profile: Alexandra McNally
MUPP, Transportation Planner, CivCon Services Inc. Heading link
Responsibilities: “I am a Transportation Planner at CivCon Services Inc. Currently, I work as a sub-consultant for different transportation/engineering firms, which has allowed me to learn different aspects of the implementation of transportation projects and experience different project teams. As a part of the Highway Safety Program project, I process and analyze highway crash data for public reports, and I create maps for the visualization of this crash data. As a part of a bus rapid transit project, I research and write for NEPA requirements related to environmental and demographic project impacts.”
How UTC Prepared Me for a Career in Transportation: “The UTC has prepared me immensely for my current position at CivCon Services through my interactions with faculty, staff and peers. The faculty and staff at the UTC were boundless sources of knowledge and experience, who would help whenever possible. They helped me develop my thesis research, weighed in on the validity of its methodology, and offered explanations to my research. My experience at the UTC included intense and long hours of interaction with my academic peers. During these times, we shared data, ideas, resources, and moral support (haha). I created better products because I used my peers to brainstorm and develop my research. Several times they encouraged me to look at problems from a different viewpoint and often they pointed me in new directions for data sources and relevant research papers. In the workplace, using your colleagues as idea-development resources is encouraged and necessary to create the best product that will often be used by the public. Additionally, faculty, staff and peers are connections to a greater network of people, which is important in the field of transportation planning, where there is strong sense of community and altruism.”