The Top Young Professionals profiled in the following pages make up the first group recognized in ENR’s new East region issue—now covering Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

It was a crowded field, with judges evaluating 130 entries to choose 20 professionals in the region under the age of 40. Reviewers did not score applications from individuals working at the same firm or any with whom they had a conflict of interest. This year’s judges were: Stuart Meurer, president and CEO of Windover Construction Inc.; Lili Liang, deputy director of Maryland Dept. of Transportation State Highway Administration; Amar Maniar, STV principal and senior engineering operations manager; André Barbour, NEI General Contracting diversity and inclusion director; and Ioanna Magiati, partner at design firm AO.

Other ENR regional changes are as follows: Texas-Louisiana and Southeast editions are merged as ENR Texas and Southeast; ENR Midwest region adds North and South Dakota; ENR Southwest edition ends, with ENR Mountain States now including Arizona and New Mexico coverage; and ENR California and Northwest editions merge to become the ENR West region, which also adds Nevada.

Anita Alexander
Environmental expert powers projects
33, Deputy Environmental and Licensing Engineering Group Supervisor
Bechtel Corp.
Reston, Va.

Alexander’s industry experience focuses on water quality and environmental permitting and site characterization. She now leads permitting and safety analysis for the firm’s nuclear power project in Poland based on a U.S. reactor design. She also led environmental efforts for a first-of-its-kind small nuclear reactor demonstration project in Wyoming using natrium technology under a U.S. Energy Dept. advanced reactor program. Alexander led her team to develop the project’s environmental report and preliminary safety analysis to support its construction permit application submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

A professional wetland scientist and member of the Society of Wetland Scientists, Alexander is also certified as a forest conservation professional by the Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources. She was Bechtel’s sustainability chair and now is vice president of its professional development employee resource group that coordinates volunteering on Habitat for Humanity projects.

 

---

 

Lauren Alger
Engineer is decarbonization expert
31, Director of Sustainable Design
STV
New York City

Inspired by her father to take up civil engineering, Alger worked for several contractors before taking a new position in 2022 as sustainability manager at professional services firm STV. In her current role, she helps mitigate environmental impacts on projects and ensures their sustainable design. Alger chairs the American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure 2050 group and helped launch its decarbonizing infrastructure initiative. She also was a panelist discussing that regional challenge at ENR’s Infrastructure Forum last September in Manhattan.

Alger recently received the Grainger Grant from the National Academy of Engineering for electric bus microgrid resilience research with Ohio State University’s Qadeer Ahmed. The grant is one of only two it awarded in 2024.

She also was a virtual delegate for Architecture 2030 at the UN COP28 annual climate summit last year in Azerbaijan. Alger is an adviser for two research groups at Columbia University’s Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Spaces, analyzing embodied carbon within infrastructure designs. She also volunteers for the Salvadori Center, a New York City organization that partners with schools to provide math, science and arts programs to K–12 students.

 

---

 

Samira Ayati
Project manager launches new firm
36, CEO and President
IVY Engineering Group
New York City

Moving from Iran at 24 to pursue a construction management master’s degree at Columbia University, Ayati began her career designing mobile and tower crane placement for an engineering firm. Her role quickly expanded as she progressed to inspector, office engineer and resident engineer positions on heavy infrastructure projects, including bridges, highways and water main installations.

In May 2023, Ayati left as a senior project manager at M&J Engineering to start her own firm, IVY Engineering Group. Now a certified women’s business enterprise in New York state, it already has contributed to large projects such as the $800-million East River Tunnel rehabilitation for Amtrak, Metropolitan Transportation Authority and NJ Transit. The firm has also won contracts with entities such as Nassau County Dept. of Public Works and the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection.

IVY Engineering, which performs a diverse range of work—from simple drafting and permitting to providing structural engineering support for major developments—has also won significant private sector assignments, notably with developer Cushman & Wakefield. Ayati is active in several professional organizations and serves on the board of alumni for Columbia University’s Center for Buildings, Infrastructure, and Public Space.

 

---

 

Candace Barfield
Leader solves construction disputes
35, Senior Director
FTI Consulting
New York City

The seeds of Barfield’s career resolving construction claims and disputes were planted while visiting jobsites for her father’s materials supply company. She saw the frustration and impact on the family business when project issues filtered down to subcontractors and suppliers and delayed payments. Barfield now advises contractors and others on project execution and contract management, including preparing notices of construction impacts, analyzing change orders and providing cost control, risk and project management services. Her experience spans commercial high-rises to power generation and large industrial projects.

Barfield is active in FTI Consulting’s women’s networking group for construction and environmental consultants in North America. She helped launch and volunteered on a pro bono initiative with the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyer Foundation, conducting in-depth research to support living condition improvements for elementary school students.

 

---

 

Steve Burke
Leader in sustainable construction
39, Senior Director, Sustainability
Suffolk
Boston

Working in both design and construction roles, Burke has given more than 50 external presentations on sustainability. He played an active role on the first net-zero hotel in the U.S. and the first all mass timber project in Maine. As Consigli Construction director of sustainability, Burke developed its first ever carbon neutrality benchmarks and goals and achieved International Living Future Institute certification. Now at Suffolk, he works with climate tech companies through the firm’s start-up accelerator.

Burke helped form the national Sustainable Construction Leaders network— in partnership with BuildingGreen and STO Building Group—after being part of a similar one for design leaders. The new group now consists of 60 U.S. sustainable construction professionals.

 

---

 

Matthew Calvey
Helping Boston live with rising water
40, Architect 
AECOM
Boston

Calvey designed the winning proposal in Boston’s Living with Water competition, focused on resilience against rising sea levels. For the Boston Logan Airport Terminal E project, he managed complex digital models, design, documentation, construction administration and project management—collaborating closely with the construction team to realize intricate geometries and systems through virtual clash resolution and redesigns.

Calvey’s work requires a focus on home energy audits; architectural modeling; computational fluid dynamics analysis; design and construction model coordination; multidisciplinary clash detection; and virtual reality visualization. Early career experience in real-world energy analysis informed his understanding of how energy flows through wall assemblies and within the space.

As an instructor at Boston Architectural College, Calvey explores the city through drawing exercises and analysis, and focuses on educating and learning from students. He is also part of the college’s employer advisory board, strengthening the student link with architecture and other firms.

Calvey spent months in the Virgin Islands working on disaster relief, documenting damaged homes in the field and designing repairs to protect against future storms.

 

---

 

Anthony Gaglio Jr.
Field experience hones safety focus
36, Vice President
Viking Construction
Bridgeport, Conn.

Starting in construction field work, Gaglio rose through his firm’s ranks. He has overseen operations, new business, marketing and community relations, recently spearheading Viking’s involvement in a partnership with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration to increase field awareness and reduce or eliminate site-related injuries. Viking regularly receives recognition for excellence in safety and achieved the highest level in one national effort sponsored by the Associated Builders and Contractors.

Gaglio has also completed a long list of OSHA and LEED training programs and is certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a safety trainer for renovations, repairs and painting. A licensed forklift operator, Gaglio now is pursuing a PhD in construction engineering and management from Columbia University. A former board member of Inspirica Inc., a nonprofit that works to solve homelessness, he now serves on the board for Fairfield County Bank, which helps finance homes for local families.

 

---

 

Amanda Haven
Marketing expert helps firms win work
37, Owner and CEO
Illuminate Marketing Collective
Oakton, Va.

Since entering the industry, Haven says she has helped companies secure multimillion-dollar contracts for roadway, rail, airport and waterway projects. Running her own proposal management and strategy consulting firm, she helps firms nationwide align their technical expertise with client needs, providing a competitive edge needed to win work.

Before striking out on her own, Haven helped HNTB develop its first project management services contract for the U.S. Federal Transit Administration, which not only expanded the firm’s transit expertise but also established a robust backlog of work and paved the way for future projects with other agencies. As marketing and business development leader at consultant Tetra Tech, Haven helped its water resources division win key projects and meet sales objectives.

Recognizing the need for enhanced client intelligence tracking to increase project wins, Haven cold-called tech giant Microsoft. That led to work with a team of engineers to design a client intelligence system tailored to the division’s unique needs.

Haven is a board director for the Society of Marketing Professionals Services’ Washington, D.C., chapter and for Proposal Industry Experts, a community-based organization dedicated to empowering others on proposal development best practices.

 

---

 

Qianyu Hu
Traffic engineer optimizes county plans
38, Assistant District Engineer, Division Chief
Maryland Dept. of Transportation
Greenbelt, Md.

Blending academic excellence and professional prowess, Hu oversees the Montgomery County, Md., traffic engineering program. She implemented policies to rectify errors and streamline workflow efficiencies, recently mandating that all division approval requests be sent through the public email address to insure comprehensive documentation and accessibility. This initiative has improved coordination and continuity, even with personnel changes.

Hu also has established a transparent work process and standardized project workflow practices. These have optimized agency internal operations and contributed to better project outcomes and client and stakeholder satisfaction. She also is a former vice president of the Chinese American Civil Engineers Society, based in metropolitan Washington, D.C.

 

---

 

Adam Jeffery
Bringing resilience to housing project
35, Project Manager
MLJ Contracting Corp.
Great Neck, N.Y.

With a career start in Australia and U.K., Jeffery moved to New York and eventually landed at MLJ. Now leading a New York City Housing Authority resilience project in Coney Island, he oversees construction of six new buildings, flood protection and renovation of 12 existing structures for about 6,000 residents.

He devised various improvements at MLJ, including redesigning underground construction methodology to avoid dewatering into the stormwater system that discharges into the ocean as well as implementing scanning and BIM to avoid conflicts with existing services in occupied buildings. Once trialed at the Coney Island site, he then shares them with the wider company.

As project engineer for a heavy civil subcontractor in Australia, Jeffery worked on some of the largest earthwork projects in Melbourne. Later, as a quantity surveyor in London, he managed commercial aspects of a modularized student accommodation as well as redevelopment work at the U.K.’s sixth busiest transit station. Jeffery now works with local tenant associations to deliver community events and was cited by the New York State legislature for his support to Coney Island residents.

 

---

 

David Kaminski
General manager fights for inclusion
39, Vice President and General Manager
Turner Construction Co.
Philadelphia

Kaminski, who became general manager of Turner’s Philadelphia office at age 34 and added the vice president title three years later, had an earlier than usual career rise at the contractor. He has spearheaded firm efforts to work with minority-owned contractors to enhance their subcontracting capacity and is a strong promoter of Turner’s procurement outreach to underrepresented businesses. Kaminski also has helped expand the firm’s bias training to field crew leaders of the carpenters’ union.

Kaminski also volunteers with the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance, a group that prepares, packages and provides meals regularly to thousands of people battling illnesses. He also helps organize an annual fundraiser in memory of a former mentor, project executive Bill Swanson, who died in 2017 at 53 from colon cancer recovery complications. The effort has raised almost $200,000 for anti-cancer and related causes. Kaminski also is an active industry and community board member of a General Building Contractors Association leadership program, the Urban Land Institute, Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and The Carpenters Co. of Philadelphia, the oldest existing craft guild in North America, founded in 1724.

 

---

 

Aneesh Karlekar
Department leader impacts growth
31, Director
AECOM
New York City

Promoted to AECOM regional energy practice director after eight years at the firm, Karlekar leads a unit that generates more than $30 million in annual revenue. He provides oversight for 150-plus projects and is New York Power Authority client account manager. Karlekar works with his team to ensure members’ involvement in business decisions, which has boosted morale, reduced attrition and achieved net head count growth of nearly 10%.

Previously, as a project manager, he delivered multiple projects that include serving as EPC contractor for a $40-million digester gas conditioning plant and managing a $20-million O&M contract at a co-generation facility. Several Karlekar recommendations to AECOM leadership have been implemented, including a detailed “go/no-go” process for decision-making on project pursuits. Implementing these helped create an upward trend in AECOM financials, he says, with annual gross margin set to rise by 5%, a 30% year-over-year improvement in sales and a 25% year-over-year increase in net service revenue that points to better efficiency in delivery.

Karlekar also serves as a director of the nonprofit Young Professionals in Energy and is a member of New York’s Waterfront Alliance Corporate Council that works to improve the city’s coastline.

 

---

 

Robert B. Lane
Entrepreneur uses M&A experience
37, Founder and CEO
Endeavor Fire Protection Holdings LLC
Boston

Endeavor, founded by Lane in 2022, ranks at No. 306 on ENR’s 2024 Top 600 Specialty Contractor list, with $115 million in 2023 revenue. That is up more than 50% from the previous year’s ranking. The firm also ranks fifth among firms listed that provide fire protection and sprinkler services. The CEO developed a first-of-its-kind broad-based equity program for a national contractor of union operators.

Prior to founding Endeavor, Lane had been senior director of corporate strategy and acquisitions and vice president of operations at Comfort Systems. He also has experience at a private equity firm, where he focused on evaluating and executing investment opportunities in the construction and real estate sectors. Prior to that, he was an investment banker, focused on mergers and acquisitions. Both experiences helped him make two key corporate purchases in 2023.

Lane is a board member of the Saint John Paul II Catholic Academy, responsible for all facility capital improvements at the school that serves inner city students. He also is developing a program there to boost student interest in construction trade careers. He also serves on a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce leadership development panel and is an adviser to the MassChallenge start-up accelerator.

 

---

 

Jennifer Mahan
Engineer is mitigative design expert
31, Associate
Thornton Tomasetti
New York City

Specializing in mitigative designs for climate change related shocks and stresses, and in post-loss investigations and assessments, Mahan is an expert in synthesizing research, geospatial data and post-disaster crowd-sourced information.

With expertise in design and building code analysis, Mahan leads team work in performance-based flood barrier testing. This looks beyond baseline codes to identify barrier strategies that meet resilience targets, whether to recover quickly after a flood or maintain continued operations.

Mahan has also served as New York chapter coordinator of Women@TT, an employee network that strives to achieve gender equality. She is also involved in Thornton Tomasetti’s equity, diversity and inclusion committee and has led other multicultural employee support efforts since 2020.

Mahan also is a founding member of the ADEPT consortium (Advancing Diversity for Engineering Pipeline Talent) in Chicago, where Thornton Tomasetti and other industry firms seek to build engineering communities that will advocate for college students of color.

Mahan is involved with her church in Harlem and volunteers for park cleanups in mostly underserved communities.

 

---

 

Sami Majumder
Safety innovator for large rail system
35, Assistant Vice President - Transit & Rail
WSP USA
Washington, D.C.

After working in the capital planning and procurement program for the Washington,D.C., Metro rail system, where he developed requests for proposals, Majumder joined WSP and led the consultant’s creation of safety programs for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. He now is developing a quality management system for its communications and signaling group.

Majumder also recently led implementation of the rail agency’s first safety management system, which aligns it with Federal Transit Administration guidelines on agency public safety. He headed a team of 20 that developed plans and processes for key infrastructure and operations that would insure a comprehensive management system.

Majumder also headed a WSP data team to deliver a short message service dashboard to enable Metro rail system safety risks to be monitored in real time. The dashboard documents when these occur and plots their severity and probability—allowing agency leaders to act quickly based on data. This allows safety risk management to be integrated as a management function as opposed to being a stand-alone activity.

Pursuing a master’s in business administration from Georgetown University, Majumder also plays for the Thunderwolves Cricket Club in the American National Cricket League.

 

---

 

Charles "Wesley" Southall
Team developer succeeds in missions
36, Mechanical Department Manager
Burns & McDonnell
Roanoke, Va.

Serving as mechanical department manager in the firm’s aviation and federal group, Southall leads work for a variety of large clients and project types. These include the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Architect of the Capitol as well as the company’s work in design and construction of a more than $1-billion naval dry dock facility.

Southall’s leadership also extends beyond the workplace. He has been an active member of the Roanoke chapter of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), serving two terms as president. He now serves on the chapter’s board of governors.

Southall also serves his community. In addition to his three years as chairman of his church’s property committee—during which he helped it prepare for several renovations—he also teaches Sunday school classes for fourth- and fifth-grade boys. An avid cyclist, Southall has trained with a group of co-workers for Ironman 70.3 races, helping to expand and improve office connections.

 

---

 

Irmak Turan
Sustainabilty and resilience expert
39, Vice President
Thornton Tomasetti
Boston

Turan leads the firm’s sustainability and resilience team based in Boston and serves as a commissioner-at-large on the city’s Air Pollution Control Commission, which oversees emissions reduction disclosures—aiming to decarbonize existing building stock by 2050. She combines research and industry experience to develop equitable decarbonization pathways for a range of new and existing buildings.

With a background in both academia and practice, Turan is an expert in environmental performance modeling of urban buildings, applying data-driven technical methods to address sustainability and carbon challenges of projects. She has published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and taught at universities such as MIT and Georgia Tech. Turan is currently co-editing a book on the use of climate models in design and planning of the built environment.

 

---

 

Shelley Wynne
Traffic expert advocates for women
33, Associate
Dewberry
Fairfax, Va.

The deputy department manager for the firm’s MidAtlantic traffic engineering group, Wynne is an expert in transportation planning and traffic analysis. Her portfolio includes an extensive range of projects involving traffic simulation modeling, crash and traffic impact analysis and studies on safety, travel time and delays. She also serves as lead traffic engineer on several federal government contracts, including work for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Wynne completed the Women’s Transportation Seminar International Signature Leadership Training, which prepares women for top roles in the transportation sector. She currently serves on the group’s Washington, D.C., chapter executive board as vice president and will continue through 2025 before stepping into the role of president.

 

---

 

Matthew D. Zettwoch
Alternate project delivery champion
39, Vice President and Program Executive
MTA Construction & Development
New York City

Zettwoch’s construction career began in high school, where he went beyond the standard curriculum to earn a concurrent two-year degree in architecture and mechanical design from the Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. Today, he leads a $5-billion project portfolio as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $55-billion capital program.

The agency and Zettwoch are also integrating more alternative project delivery into the capital programs, which has already been yielding better returns on investment for construction dollars, he says. As a member of MTA’s volunteer advisory committee for transit accessibility, Zettwoch works with advocates to integrate needs of the community into improvement projects the agency is delivering.

Zettwoch has also served as a guest lecturer at the Pratt University campus in Long Island and at Columbia University. He also recently graduated with honors from Columbia’s construction administration master’s degree program.

An avid runner, Zettwoch participates in marathons for multiple charities. These include St. Jude’s Children Hospital and the Team for Kids charity, which he supported at the 2022 New York City Marathon.

 

---

 

Erik Zuker
Data driven bridge engineer
37, Senior Project Engineer and Firmwide Bridge Technology Lead
HNTB Corp.
New York City

Experienced in pairing bridge engineering with extreme weather analytics, structural sensors, freight data evaluation, cloud computing and risk analyses, Zuker was an invaluable addition to the engineering team hired by the New York State Thruway Authority for work on the $3.14-billion Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, which opened in 2017-2018. He now oversees the span’s structural monitoring system, which has more than 400 sensors that provide 27 million rows of data every hour.

Zuker is also involved in HNTB’s deployment of technologies, including acoustic emissions to detect steel crack growth, use of machine learning to provide early detection of structural behavior change and artificial intelligence-based computer vision analysis to quantify structural deflections.

Collaborating with university partners, he has used digital image correlation to quantify 3D strains of steel using non-contact methods. He also created cloud-hosted data pipelines to gather, post, process and visualize live data sources to improve situational awareness for traffic congestion, rainfall and river flood levels.

After being deployed as an emergency bridge inspector during Hurricane Ida in 2021 and witnessing the devastation of a rail bridge washout, Zuker has been involved in quantifying and communicating risks that bridges face from extreme rainfall and flooding. He has briefed several key federal agencies on his rainfall analytics work.

 

---