For Hannah Iezzoni, the decision to study civil engineering in college was a no-brainer. Since she can remember, she’s had an interest in infrastructure. But during her time as a student at Northwestern University, she found out structural engineering and transportation engineering weren’t so exciting. “I didn’t really like any of it,” she says. Thanks to one of her professors, a geotechnical engineer, landing her an internship with a geotechnical specialty contractor in Chicago, she discovered her passion. “[I was] pretty much drilling really deep holes and I thought it was the best thing I’d ever done.” Now she’s completed grad school and has almost a year in with GEI Consultants as a geotechnical engineer. She is also a member of the Deep Foundations Institute's Women in Deep Foundations Committee. Iezzoni says she’s growing increasingly interested in the intersection between the planning side in the office and the construction side in the field. “As I’ve been learning more about the industry and doing even more on the design side, I keep getting sucked in more,” she says.
Q. What do you do and what keeps you coming back every day?