A Houston environmental consulting engineer and a RAND Corp. engineer in Culver City, Calif., were this year’s recipients of The University of Texas at Austin Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate award. Rebecca Peterson Luman and Dr. Michael Evan Webber were honored at the College of Engineering commencement ceremony May 20.
The award is given to individuals age 40 and under for distinguished contributions in professional work, community service, and service to the university’s College of Engineering.
Luman earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1989. She is a licensed professional engineer in California, New York and Texas. She currently serves as the director of environmental management technology for Specialty Technical Consultants, Inc., a Houston firm that works to enhance the environmental, health and safety performance of industry clients.
During her career, she has served as an environmental regulatory consultant and project manager for remediating groundwater contamination, and for assessing petroleum and manufacturing facilities. She also has overseen investigations and removal actions at Superfund sites, and performed compliance audits and assessments of environmental management systems within the aerospace, food, manufacturing and other industries. She currently concentrates on technology use in regulatory compliance and environmental management systems assessment, and on coordinating the Houston firm’s regulatory information and its publications.
She has remained connected to the College as the “unofficial class agent” for civil engineering classmates nationally, and the official class agent for the Civil Engineering Centennial Campaign. A longtime Friends of Alec donor, she also supports the Department of Civil Engineering. She met her partner, mechanical engineering graduate John Luman, as an undergraduate at the university. The couple has a daughter, Ariana, and expects another child this fall.
Webber earned bachelor’s degrees with honors in both aerospace engineering and liberal arts from The University of Texas at Austin in 1995. As an associate engineer for RAND Corporation, he analyzes problems and policy issues related to the erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base, investments by the Department of Defense in small business research, and tactics and technologies for joint operations and projects of the U.S. Air Force and Army.
This position builds on his more than a decade of experience with university and industry research projects. As an undergraduate here, he spent two summers helping assess a supersonic combustion jet engine at NASA’s Ames Research Center. While he was at Stanford University earning a master’s degree and a doctorate in mechanical engineering, he developed gas sensors for use on space station bioreactors and other purposes.
His community involvement includes being a founding president of the 4 Star Democratic Club, and a board member for Hope Street Group, a non-profit for young professionals interested in sustainable economic growth.
He met partner Julia Christine Cook Webber while she was completing a bachelor’s degree in architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. They have a daughter, Evelyn, and son, David.
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