Sage Smith
Award
Outstanding Civil Engineering Student
Description
Sage Smith has distinguished herself through exceptional leadership, mentorship, technical achievement, and service to the civil engineering community. As President of ASCE at UCLA, she led the chapter with a clear focus on expanding community service, strengthening ties with the Los Angeles Younger Member Forum and Metropolitan Los Angeles Branch, increasing professional mentorship and development, and significantly growing chapter programming. Under her leadership, professional events increased from 29 to 60, participation in Younger Member Forum and branch events grew substantially, and the officer board was reorganized into a more effective committee and calendar system that strengthened chapter operations and long-term continuity.
Her impact also reflects a sustained record of commitment across multiple years. As Treasurer, she established greater financial transparency and accountability, ensuring project managers understood and met their budgets while helping coordinate complex travel, hotel, and catering logistics for major student events and competitions involving dozens to more than one hundred attendees. She contributed directly to ASCE at UCLA’s competitive success through Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe, the Pacific Southwest Symposium Technical Paper competition, and the Associated Schools of Construction Sustainable Building Competition, where her teams earned top placements including second place at ASC 67 and a Region 9 Distinguished Chapter Award.
Professionally, Sage has demonstrated strong technical promise through internships with Lumos & Associates, AECOM, and Kimley-Horn, supporting transit and rail design, plan production, existing conditions analysis, and cost estimation on major infrastructure projects. She has also remained employed with Kimley-Horn throughout the school year while balancing demanding academic and leadership responsibilities.
Equally notable is her civic engagement. She helped reinstate the Community Service Chair within the UCLA student chapter, participated in seismic outreach efforts for middle school students and families experiencing houselessness or financial insecurity, volunteered in beach cleanups, served as a panelist for outreach to young girls interested in engineering, and began building partnerships with Santa Monica Community College to expand access to technical projects, in addition to initiating leadership pathways for admitted UCLA transfer students. Through all of these efforts, Sage has demonstrated the professionalism, initiative, and commitment to service that embody the highest ideals of ASCE.
Branch
