Region 2 Awards
2024 Award Winners
ASCE Region 2 would like to congratulate this year's award winners!
Student Member - Kris Melag of Drexel University received the Outstanding Student Member Award - recognizing participation in ASCE student chapter.
Younger Member - Alyssa S. Sooklal, P.E., M.ASCE received the Outstanding Younger Member Award - recognizing professional achievement and impact on the field of civil engineering.
Alyssa S. Sooklal, P.E., M.ASCE is a Water Resources Engineer with McCormick Taylor in Baltimore, MD. She is responsible for stormwater management, drainage design, erosion & sediment control design, stormwater management inspections, construction oversight, 1D/2D modelling, and other duties of engineering design and construction. Alyssa holds a Professional Engineer (PE) license in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering with a secondary major in Spanish and a minor in Earth & Planetary Sciences from The Johns Hopkins University.
Alyssa currently serves as the President of the Younger Member Group of ASCE Maryland. She has served on the executive board of ASCE Maryland Younger Member Group for many years, and also serves as an Eastern Geographic Member of ASCE National's Committee on Younger Members. She is the ASCE Maryland Section's incoming Secretary for the 2024-2025 term, and Chair of the Professional Objectives Committee of the Maryland Section. Alyssa was selected as the Young Civil Engineer of the Year by ASCE Maryland in 2022, and a New Face of Civil Engineering by ASCE National in 2024.
Outside of her volunteerism with ASCE, Alyssa serves as a Board Member of the Education Foundation of Baltimore County Public Schools. She is active in her church and community, and participates in several church and community events ever year. In her free time, Alyssa enjoys exploring new places and reading cute fiction novels.
Practitioner/Faculty Advisor - Dr. Tabitha L. Sprau Coulter (Kings College) received the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award - recognizing outstanding ASCE support of ASCE student chapters and its civil engineering students.
Dr. Tabitha L. Sprau Coulter is the Department Chair for the Engineering Department and an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at King’s College. She previously worked in engineering and energy consulting and holds an active Certified Energy Manager license. Dr. Sprau Coulter was an energy modeler for Reese Engineering and a mechanical engineer for KlingStubbins and Jacobs Engineering.
At King’s College Dr. Sprau Coulter is the faculty advisor for the ASCE Student Chapter and the Engineering Club. She is passionate about service-learning and looks for opportunities to incorporate community outreach into the courses she teaches and the clubs she advises. Dr. Sprau Coulter is also a member of the campus Sustainability Initiative Group and works with faculty, staff, and students to identify and implement sustainability initiatives.
Outside of King’s, Dr. Sprau Coulter does freelance work for a publishing company. She also enjoys spending time outdoors and with her family hiking, running, kayaking, and gardening!
Diversity and Inclusion: Kristen L. Sanford, Ph.D., P.E. received the Outstanding Diversity & Inclusion Award - to recognize efforts that respect and include diverse perspectives by way of conduct within Region 2 through ASCE’s Code of ethics.
Dr. Kristen Sanford is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lafayette College where she teaches students from a variety of majors about sustainable and equitable infrastructure, with a particular focus on transportation systems. She also conducts research aimed at improving how we educate students, especially civil engineers, to plan, design, build, and manage these systems so that they are equitable, economically sound, and environmentally sustainable.
Dr. Sanford currently serves the Lehigh Valley ASCE Section as a Director, Student Chapter Liaison, and DEI Liaison; she also has been active at the national level in ASCE education-related committees and has recently been appointed to the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge Task Committee. She has been a member of the Transportation & Development Institute’s Infrastructure Systems Committee for more than 25 years and serves as an Associate Editor for ASCE’s Journal of Infrastructure Systems. In addition to ASCE, she has served in leadership positions for the Civil Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education and on several Committees of the Transportation Research Board. Dr. Sanford earned her Ph.D. and M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and her B.S.E. from Duke University, and she is a licensed Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania.
Lifetime Achievement: Stephen J. Ressler, P.E., Ph.D., Dist.M.ASCE, F.ASEE received the Lifetime Achievement Award - to recognize efforts from a long and impressive career within civil engineering.
Dr. Stephen Ressler is Professor Emeritus from the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, NY. He holds a B.S. degree from USMA, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering from Lehigh University, and a Master of Strategic Studies degree from the U.S. Army War College.
Dr. Ressler served for 34 years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and retired at the rank of Brigadier General in 2013. While on active duty, he served in a variety of military engineering assignments in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Central Asia. He is an Army master parachutist and a registered professional engineer in Virginia. At West Point, he served as Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Director of the ABET-accredited civil engineering program, Vice Dean for Education, and USMA Chief of Staff, while also teaching a wide variety of mechanics, structural engineering, and professional practice courses across the civil engineering curriculum. As Department Head, he supervised 46 faculty and staff, two accredited engineering programs, and two research centers. In 2007, he deployed to Afghanistan to develop a civil engineering program for the National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NMAA) in Kabul.