“Dr. Shealy clearly shows how much he cares for his students,” said Nora Harris. “He takes time to develop undergrads and get them involved with research, while also ensuring that his graduate students are gaining all of the experiences that they need to be a top candidate for future opportunities.”
Developing students to succeed in the future is something that Shealy strives to do. He is currently working on a research project titled “Preparing engineers to address climate change and its implications on sustainability: modeling impact of college experiences on students.” His other research focuses on engineering decision making for sustainable infrastructure systems. He targets under-explored areas by applying concepts from psychology and data science to implement cost-effective ways to guide stakeholders in the infrastructure development process toward decisions that lead to more sustainable outcomes.
His resarch interests also include how themes related to sustainability can attract new students to study engineering. “Sustainability is a big part of Dr. Shealy’s curriculum and he shows that he knows it well,” said Taylor Bolte. “Being in class with him and doing research with him has positively affected my learning at Virginia Tech.”
His interest in sustainability and student decision-making began in his time at Clemson University. He earned all three degrees from Clemson and worked briefly as a consultant for the construction industry reviewing building codes, assisting engineering firms with sustainability assessments, and as a project engineer building water treatment facilities. He joined Virginia Tech in 2015 as an assistant professor for the CEE department and a principal faculty member in the Myers-Lawson School of Construction. He teaches a wide variety of courses including Estimating, Production, and Life Cycle Analysis, Sustainable Engineering Design and Management, Decision Making for Sustainable Systems, and Global Virtual Design and Construction.
The. G.V. Loganathan award was formerly known as the CEE Faculty Achievement Award. It is determined by a poll of current CEE students.
