Nathalie Thelemaque received her bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 2020 from the University of Florida and is a PhD student in civil engineering at the University of Washington (UW), where her research uses mixed methods to examine the relationship between critical infrastructure and the public as it relates to emergencies and sociodemographic factors. Before officially beginning her PhD, she worked on an NSF-RAPID project with UW examining the challenges and responsibilities of U.S. utilities in response to COVID-19. She believes changes must be made to adequately support the country's growing population and remedy technical system disparities, and her future research will address equitable infrastructure investment and resilience. Thelemaque's outreach includes co-leading a virtual project for incoming UW undergraduates to help create a sense of community during the pandemic, delivering guest lectures on imposter syndrome, and mentoring BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color) high school students in a STEM program run by MIT. She is the recipient of the 2022 Outstanding Woman in DEI Advocacy from the UW Society of Women Engineers and will soon take pedagogical theory classes. As a professor, she will develop a curriculum that is timely and relevant and will ensure her classroom is a space that fosters engagement at different levels using firsthand and critical examples.

Research Interests

Relationship Between Critical Infrastructure and Communities