Engineer on how CWRU prepared him to build bridges. Literally.

Engineering student Luke Traverso

Case Western Reserve University engineering student Luke Traverso (pictured here) is a bridge-builder. Quite literally.

Luke is currently completing a co-op with a Cleveland-based bridge inspection, analysis and rehabilitation design company (and taking some pretty cool pics along the way ☝️). He will return to CWRU in the spring to complete his master’s in civil engineering, as part of the Case School of Engineering’s integrated BS/MS program.

How did CWRU prepare Luke to scale bridges and rehabilitate the nation’s infrastructure?

Watch the video to hear from him

► Inspired courses 

  • “My courses emphasized the need to critically think through problems that we may not have seen before. It is much closer to what occurs in the workplace when unique and complex problems are presented.” 

► Internship experience in the field

  • After his first year at CWRU, Luke interned with a transportation design firm in New Jersey where he drafted several of the improvements designed for the Harlem River Lift Span Bridge that connects Manhattan and the Bronx.
  • The following summer, he interned with The Ruhlin Company in Ohio, where he worked on-site on two steel girder bridges.

► Student organization leadership

  • Traverso joined CWRU’s Steel Bridge Team student organizations as a first-year student. By his second year, the team advanced to nationals in an annual bridge-building competition for the first time in university history.

► Mentorship from faculty

  • “Michael Pollino of the CWRU Civil and Environmental Engineering Department has been my academic advisor, advisor to the steel bridge team, and I have done research projects with him. He has mentored me through them all and is an incredible instructor.”
  • “He stepped in to help the Steel Bridge Team fabricate a few components at Sears think[box] as we were nearing competition, which meant a lot as he was willing to give time to help the group, even though he is a professor and father.”

Make CWRU the bridge to your future.