Shiqi Li - Introduction

Hi everyone, my name is Shiqi Li. I am from Suzhou, China, a city famous for its water resource and beautiful gardens. This is my first semester in Carnegie Mellon University, and I am majored in civil and environmental engineering. I mainly focus on sustainable design and sensor and sensing system. I spent my undergrad in University of California, Berkeley, where I finished my B.S. degree in civil and environmental engineering.

As a student with civil engineering background, I worked for Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research center, HC Structural Engineering in California and I am currently working as a research assistant for professor Haeyoung Noh for structural health monitoring project and professor Pine Liu for work order analysis. I also joined competition concrete canoe and earthquake competition teams in UC Berkeley. Due to these past and present experience in civil engineering, I am well-informed with theoretical and practical knowledge in the industry. However, these experience cannot offer me a thorough understanding of decision-making and policies that are the birth and results of many of the engineering practices.

As engineers, we design and develop new ideas by following certain policies. At the same time, our innovation and decisions affect new and existing policies. To me, it is an interaction between a specific group of professionals and the general public, between new ideas and incentives to make changes. Every policy change is a bold move, especially for innovated technologies. My career goal is to apply my knowledge in energy and structural sustainability. This is an area to be further developed and will have more decision making than traditional structural design industries. There will be more energy saving methods and technologies invented or promoted, more smart devices implemented. In this case, institutions and public needs more policies to control and manage all the innovations. In order to be a part of this system, this course will offer me a deeper understanding of how to relate engineering innovations with public policies, management and business administration. Therefore, I can make wiser decisions in the early designing stage.