CEE at Illinois assistant professor Ann Sychterz received the 2024 Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (SEAOI). This award recognizes practicing structural engineers under the age of 35 who have made significant achievements in their fields as determined by their colleagues.
Sychterz joined the CEE at Illinois faculty in 2020. Her research interests include optimized sensor placement for civil structures, structural dynamics, form-finding methods, machine learning and robotics for civil structures, and damage mitigation and risk assessment in large scale structures. She is the primary investigator of the Sychterz Modular Adaptive Resilient Transformable Infrastructure (SMARTI) Lab, where her team focuses on harnessing geometrically nonlinear systems, such as tensegrity structures and origami, for adaptive civil infrastructure.
Sychterz additionally serves as a faculty fellow of the National Center for Super Computing Applications and a faculty affiliate of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in the Autonomous Materials Systems group.