Civil engineering seniors Sinclair Kennedy-Nolle and Isabella Ng brought home the Mohr's Circle Trophy after placing first in the Geo-Prediction student competition, held annually as part of the Geo-Congress meeting on groundbreaking geotechnical engineering research. Geotechnical engineering is a topic within civil engineering that analyzes soil, rock, and groundwater to ensure stability for construction projects, such as tunnels and dams. 

For the Geo-Prediction contest, student teams are given detailed geotechnical data to analyze, such as soil conditions and applied loading, in order to develop accurate predictions for a specific set of parameters. Predictions may use analytical methods, empirical correlations, geotechnical software, or computational models. This year, the competition examined the axial capacity of two auger cast piles, and Kennedy-Nolle and Ng developed an empirical methodology to calculate the pile’s capacity. 

In addition to their competition presentation, they also attended multiple lectures and met leaders in the field, including Dr. Susan Burns, who served as Ph.D. advisor to the students' own faculty advisor, Hejintao Huang, assistant professor of civil engineering. Dr. Burns is the president of the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which organizes the Geo-Congress, and is a professor of civil engineering at Georgia Tech.