Miguel Gonzalez

Miguel Gonzalez received a $5,000 SEAW Scholarship in 2021.Miguel Angel Gonzalez Montijo earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez, and now studies toward a PhD in structural engineering and mechanics at the University of Washington, with an estimated graduation date of 2023. While at the UPRM, he participated in STEM outreach and competed with the ASCE concrete canoe and concrete cylinder teams; and while at the UW he has served on the CEE graduate student advisory board and the justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion committee. Professionally, Miguel had a structural analysis internship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and now serves as a research assistant at UW. Miguel became interested in structural engineering after Hurricane Maria decimated his hometown in 2017, which started him down a path of learning to improve infrastructure. He shares his research at professional conferences and in peer-reviewed publications, and he has received several academic fellowships and hopes to ultimately become a research professor. In his free time, he enjoys recreational sports like soccer, tennis, and volleyball. Miguel was born and attended high school in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Miguel says, “It was and is my hope that by following this science all the way to a professorship, I will be able to develop relevant research that will yield more resilient structures, mitigating the brunt of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.”