CEAT Graduate Student Accepts New Job with the FAA

Amanda Kiser

Master’s student, Amanda Kiser Wingerter, will start working for the FAA New England Region Airports Division in January 2007. She has been a graduate student at UIUC studying Environmental Engineering since 2005 and has completed the course work for a M.S. degree in December 2006.

Amanda graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in May 2005. In the fall of 2005, she began graduate school at UIUC studying Environmental Engineering and started working as a research assistant at the Illinois State Water Survey on campus. She quickly became involved with Prof. Herricks research. Amanda states, “As soon as I began my master's degree, I became a part of Dr. Herricks research group because I was so interested in the work he and his students were doing - in general, his projects combined engineering and the environment/ecology in some way, and most of the projects involved field work rather than lab work.”

Amanda officially started working on the O’Hare Modernization Program research project with Dr. Herricks in January of 2006. Her research work with the CEAT OMP project involved wildlife safety management at airports, specifically O’Hare, but the research can be applied to any airport. The research project focuses on managing the environment at the airport in ways that reduce attractiveness of the habitat to birds and other wildlife, and in turn preventing collisions between airplanes and wildlife to keep the airport more safe and efficient. She has also worked closely with Dr. Branham from the NRES Department at UIUC and research student Theresa Kissane on this research project.

In mid-January 2007, Amanda will begin working as a civil engineer for the FAA New England Region Airports Division. She first heard of the job opportunity while presenting her research at the FAA New England Region Airports Conference in late October of 2006. Amanda and her husband, Brant Wingerter, will relocate to Woburn, MA which is just north of Boston in January.

Amanda states, “I know that the research I’ve worked on with Dr. Herricks under the CEAT program really helped to make me a good candidate for the FAA position, and has prepared me well for my career.”