News Detail

ACI Concrete Convention Welcomes More than 600 Younger Members

11/4/2022

Pervious Concrete Competition Teams from Latin America.

The ACI Concrete Convention held October 23-27, 2022, in Dallas, TX, USA, was bustling with activities and opportunities for both undergraduates, grad students, and young professionals.

A total of 825 student members registered for the fall convention with 383 students attending in-person and the remainder opting to engage with ACI through on-demand virtual technical sessions. The excitement kicked off on Sunday morning with the Pervious Concrete Cylinder Competition, the first in-person competition held since the start of the pandemic. Nearly 30 undergraduate teams from around the world competed for cash prizes.

Later in the evening, the ACI Student Chapter at the University of Houston-Downtown hosted the Student and Young Professional Networking Event with a digitally interactive Kahoot game that tested their knowledge of ACI and Texas-related facts. The winners received local swag items including cowboy hats. During the event, Tyler Olfers, a younger member from the ACI Central Texas Chapter, treated attendees to a live acoustic guitar session. The networking event was sponsored by Universal Engineering Sciences, a national engineering and construction services company with offices based in Dallas.

Ten graduate students received travel stipends to attend the Dallas Convention.

Graduate Student Convention Travel Stipend

To support students in their academic research and professional development, the Student and Young Professional Activities Committee awarded ten $1,000 USD travel stipends to graduate students pursuing master’s or doctoral degrees from universities across the USA and Canada. The Graduate Student Convention Travel Stipend Program application period is between April 1 and June 15. Students can apply to attend a spring or fall convention.

The below committees hosted career development and technical sessions for future educators and engineers. Some of these sessions are available On-Demand to registered attendees.

S802 Teaching Methods and Educational Materials

Speaker development breakfast: Three-person panel led a discussion related to teaching methods that proved successful during COVID-19.

Concrete Design 201: Attendees learned how to identify relevant ACI documents to address structural design problems.

S805 Student Leadership Council

ACI Student Forum: Student speakers delivered presentations about their university activities and achievements.

S806 Young Professional Activities Committee Co-Chair, Megan Huberty, and Chair, Andres Matos.

S806 Young Professional Activities Committee

What I Wish I Knew -- Managing Career Transitions: A panel of young professionals discussed how to set up professional goals and how to gain, develop and cultivate essential "soft skills" that are key for a smooth professional transition.

ACI 123 Committee Research in Progress

Student Poster Session: The Poster Session compliments the existing Research in Progress and Open Topic Presentation sessions and provides further opportunity for the presentation of original, unpublished results from ongoing research projects and leading-edge concrete technology throughout the world.

Open Topics: This session featured presentations of original, unpublished results from ongoing research projects and leading-edge concrete technology and research throughout the world.

Research in Progress: The session is a forum for presenting recent technical information that could not be scheduled into other convention sessions.

The Call for Papers for undergraduate and recently graduated students to participate in the Undergraduate Research Session on April 3, 2023, during the ACI Concrete Convention in San Francisco, CA, USA, is open until November 30, 2022.

Learn More about Convention Travel Stipends and submit Call for Papers.