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Claire Mooney’s journey from her Yankton home to her college home at South Dakota State University in Brookings has been filled with career-defining side trips.

Today the civil engineering major is just weeks away from graduation, which will be followed by another adventure—studying coastal engineering at Oregon State University. The fact that she is even going to studying in the field is the result of one of her side trips.

She came to Brookings with  an intention of studying civil engineering, but she didn’t know which branch. Following her freshman year, she and a friend decided to follow the example of her friend’s parent a generation ago. They packed a suitcase and headed to Skagway, Alaska, to work at a restaurant at the cruise ship harbor city.

Those three months provided her some good spending money, improved her people skills and showed her where she wanted to focus her civil engineering career.

“Seeing the coastline and the infrastructure needed for the cruise ship industry intrigued me. With its unique topography, I was seeing things I wasn’t used to. Even though I wasn’t doing engineering, I was still thinking about engineering,” Mooney said.

She started thinking about engineering while at Yankton High School, where she excelled in math and science. SDSU was an easy choice because her parents and older brothers had attended SDSU. Another factor was the scholarship she received.

“I had the opportunity to attend the distinguished scholar's event on campus and interviewed for university-wide scholarships. I ended up getting the Jerry Lohr scholarship. This was very integral in my decision to attend SDSU,” Mooney said.

Started with ASCE as freshman

As a freshman she got involved in the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. She served as freshman representative on ASCE officer board. As a sophomore, she was the ASCE representative to the college’s Joint Engineering Council. In the fall of her junior year, Mooney attended at a national ASCE convention in Tampa, Florida.

A hurricane shut down the convention before Mooney could be part of a student panel, but she was there long enough to receive a career-shaping invitation.

Others on the panel suggested Mooney apply to be part of ASCE’s Student Presidential Group, which connects student leaders with ASCE society leadership and staff, working to advance and connect students and student chapters.

“We give them advice from our perspective as students,” Mooney explained.

Helps led regional workshop

After applying and introducing herself to other Student Presidential Group members, she was invited to join the group in December 2024. Among the opportunities this selection presented was taking a leadership role in a regional workshop for student chapter leaders in Chicago Jan. 30-31.

She and a Student Presidential Group member from Kansas led presentations and panels for about 100 students from several universities.

Mooney was joined by four other SDSU student leaders— Dylan Calzo, Zach Smith, Brenden Brichacek  and Josephine Moneke. The Student Presidential Group gave a presentation on what it does and led a discussion on how to engage all the different groups in a student chapter, such as the academically motivated or the socially motivated, she said.

“It was a really good public speaking experience and useful in learning how to lead a group of people,” Mooney said.

People skills prove invaluable

She said her Alaska experience nearly three years ago continues to aid her route to  becoming a professional engineer. “I really learned how to communicate and work with people from all over. I worked with people that came from out of the country. Everyone was from everywhere. Interacting with so many personality types has made me a better communicator.”

She is now able to form connections with people more easily, a definite bonus in her role with the Student Professional Group, she said.

The summer after her sophomore year, Mooney literally sailed in the opposite direction.

“I wanted to study aboard somewhere, but couldn’t do it for a semester and stay on track to graduate in four years. I worked with the (SDSU) International Affairs office. Greece was one of the more affordable options.
So she spent 10 weeks learning how to sail a 60-foot sailboat. Mooney became a licensed sailboat operator. She hasn’t operated a sailboat since, but she still uses something else she learned. 

“Being in a foreign country improves your confidence as you navigate in a country where they speak a different language.”

Next stop: Oregon State

This past summer she got a taste of coastal engineering while working a marine engineering intern in landlocked Colorado. Now-retired department head Nadim Wiebe had a contact with Kiewit Infrastructure Engineering in Lone Tree, south of Denver. From that office, she was working on projects around the country.

“I did barge stability analysis for equipment put on barges during construction. If they were going to put a crane or an excavator or a man lift on a barge, I would figure out the limits for that barge with equipment on it. It will be great to have that knowledge in costal engineering, such as for dredging in waterways,” she said.

This summer, before beginning her two-year master’s program at Oregon State University, will work as a coastal restoration intern with HDR Engineering in Corpus Christi, Texas. For her career, she hopes to design coastal resiliency projects.

Mooney’s time spent in Francis Ting’s hydrology lab, studying fluid dynamics and hydrologic engineering has been part of a “great” civil engineering education, she said. 

“The faculty has been very supportive academically and professionally. There has been a lot of support, which has provided a great basis to further myself professionally.”