2023 Internship Program

Click here to download the informational announcement, requirements, and application instructions.

For more information, contact SPTC Director Musharraf Zaman at zaman@ou.edu

As a Regional University Transportation Center (UTC), the Southern Plains Transportation Center (SPTC) is committed to strengthening the UTC program’s legacy of invaluable contributions to transportation education and workforce development by executing a comprehensive strategy of innovative programs with a strong diversity-building component that encourages K-12 students, college students or adult learners to become transportation professionals. An important element of SPTC’s workforce development effort is the Transportation Regional Internship Program (TRIP).

SPTC students who are legally qualified to participate in the internship program (citizens, permanent residents, etc.) may apply. Students from other schools may be considered.

Meet the Interns

University of Oklahoma

OU is the leader of the SPTC.

Joshua Cunningham

Joshua is a full time BME student and a part time tradesman. He spent his internship with his mentor, Dr. Syed Ashik Ali, in the Broce lab preparing, processing, and manufacturing asphalt to specification. Going to asphalt labs and seeing what happens behind the scenes was one of the most expected things about his internship. He believes better permeable concrete is the next big step for the industry.

Sam Bauer

Sam is a senior civil engineering major with an interest in public infrastructure and waterways. He spent his internship with his mentor, Dr. Syed Ashik Ali, in the Broce lab learning how to run gradations, asphalt mixing and compaction, and various testing methods. The most unexpected thing he encountered was how small variations in asphalt design affect mix performance. He wants to work in public infrastructure and waterways, and believes the next big step for the industry is more efficient asphalt production and the use of RAP (recycled asphalt pavements).

ArDOT (Arkansas Department of Transportation)

The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) is a government department in the U.S. state of Arkansas. With more than 3,600 employees across the state, ARDOT is responsible for over 16,400 miles of state highways and over 7,300 bridges, the 12th largest state highway system in the nation. This system facilitates interstate and intrastate commerce and carries nearly 35 billion vehicle miles of travel annually to support the $120 billion Arkansas economy.

Adil Ayadi

Adil is currently employed as a Civil Engineering Student Intern for the Arkansas Department of Transportation, working for the Resident Engineer Office in Fayetteville. He has been assisting in inspection duties, insuring contract adherence on several construction projects. He has utilized a straight edge, tape measure and provided documentation for project progress. His efforts have helped serve the public through ensuring quality in construction.

Cameron Webb

Cameron worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Bridge Operations Division. He assisted bridge inspectors with note taking and collection of element level defects. He assisted in mobile LiDAR collection to gather vertical clearance data for the State’s oversized truck permitting process. Cameron also worked with our scour group on researching and developing plans of action for scour susceptible bridges.

Daniel Passarelli

Daniel Passarelli worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Bentonville, AR, one of America’s fastest developing areas. He worked on a team of engineers and inspectors assisting with the administration of heavy highway and bridge construction projects. Typical responsibilities included engineering assignments, estimating, surveying, inspection, and documentation of roadway and bridge operations..

Hayden Fleming

Hayden worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Bentonville, AR, one of America’s fastest developing areas. He worked on a team of engineers and inspectors assisting with the administration of heavy highway and bridge construction projects. Typical responsibilities included engineering assignments, estimating, surveying, inspection, and documentation of roadway and bridge operations.

Mark Jones

Mark worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Bentonville, AR, one of America’s fastest developing areas. He worked on a team of engineers and inspectors assisting with the administration of heavy highway and bridge construction projects. Typical responsibilities included engineering assignments, estimating, surveying, inspection, and documentation of roadway and bridge operations.

Patrick Mucyo

Patrick worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Bentonville Design Office. We oriented his tasks around familiarizing him with bridge construction and the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications. He reviewed the plan drawings, produced a superstructure model using our MDX software, and completed design calculations to learn the process and verify the completed structural design. He also participated in a visit to the site to help verify that our bridge layout accurately conveyed the existing conditions of the existing bridge. Patrick also worked with one of our Senior Engineers to create a strut-and-tie model to design a pier cap to support a bridge superstructure..

Sara Solaimanian

Sara is currently employed at the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the SIR Asset Management Office. Sara learned to use data from the ground penetrating radar (GPR) and the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) to perform the backcalculations necessary to determine the remaining life of an asphalt pavement. She used this knowledge to assist in the analyses requested by Highway Police for overweight permit requests on weight restricted routes. She also learned about pavement distresses (e.g., cracking, rutting, faulting, roughness) and how pavement condition data is collected and analyzed. She learned how to perform manual distress surveys to verify pavement condition data collected via automated methods. Sara also learned how to operate the high speed profiler.

Steven Knox

Steven worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Yellville. Steven’s primary work duties involved our overlay projects. He assisted inspectors with ensuring compliance to the specifications, collecting load tickets, documenting materials used on the projects and completing daily work reports. Steven also checked asphalt for smoothness, ensured tack coat and prime coat was correctly applied, inspected projects, and completed minor surveying.

Bodie King

Bodie worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Bentonville Resident Engineering Office. He helped inspect a Pavement Preservation project that contained Ultrathin Bonded Wearing Course, ACHM Binder and Surface Courses, and Guardrail, performed surveying work for original and final cross sections, setting Right-of-Way, and staking numerous overlay projects, helped inspect State, County and City overlays, a Drilled Railroad Rail Slide Repair Project, a bridge project over Crooked Creek, and a Traffic Signal project. Bodie also prepared supporting documentation for change orders.

Daniel Park Kim

Daniel is currently employed for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern, working in the Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Section of the Maintenance Division. Daniel supports the TSMO group with data collection, in-field inspections, plan review, permits, digitizing documentation and research. He has been working with Districts to compiled Portable CMS asset lists that can be used as part of the upcoming Solar Eclipse event and to determine feasibility of “Smart” upgrades to the portable devices to allow remote connectivity and GPS locations. Daniel has also researched Radar Feedback Blue Light solutions for HP HEAT teams as part of their Work Zone Speeding Enforcement Campaign and assisted with Lighting, ITS, Traffic signal plan reviews. He has generated TCD permits and assisted with converting and storing files.

Karson Jerry

Karson worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Little Rock. Karson primarily worked on job 061331 (Hwy 10/I-430 Interchange) working around cold-milling and ACHM paving crews. He also spent time with contractors while they performed concrete flatwork, such as curb, sidewalk, and islands. Karson inspected erosion control work, including seeding, sodding, and drainage. When not working on 061331, Karson assisted with surveying by assisting crews by taking original/final shots and setting right of way.

Javin Shirley

Javin worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Conway, mainly working on Job 080457 in Mayflower. He was involved in the inspection of asphalt operations, including the placement of the grade raise, final surface, and widening. Javin also was tasked with inspection of concrete placement operations including the placement of curb and gutter, sidewalk, wheelchair ramps, and concrete driveways. He also assisted with concrete inspection, striping, surveying, and data analysis.

Sam Szwak

Sam worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Hot Springs. He helped out on 061309 and A60025 this summer. Both of these projects also required the inspection of various traffic control scenarios and filling out daily work and OTTRS reports. On A60025 he worked nights inspecting mill and overlay operations and was a huge help to the main inspector on that project. He also assisted our Construction Project Coordinator inspect the construction of box culvert extensions, stone backfill, compacted embankment and aggregate base course.

Stedman Riley

Stedman worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the Resident Engineer Office in Conway. During this time, he worked mainly on Job 080457 in Mayflower. He was involved in the inspection of asphalt operations, including the placement of the grade raise; final surface; widening; placement of sidewalks, gutters, curbs, wheelchair ramps, and driveways. Additionally, he assisted with concrete testing, striping, traffic pattern shifts, drainage, and surveying.

Tevin Mosley

Tevin worked for the Arkansas Department of Transportation as a Civil Engineering Student Intern in the West Memphis Resident Engineer office. He started his work with inspection of asphalt operations on Highway 79 in Crittenden and St. Francis Counties. He also provided intermittent staffing on a polymer overlay bridge rehabilitation project during this time. Later he moved to an interdistrict raised pavement marker project and provided the primary inspection in Crittenden County before winding up the summer on another asphalt pavement project on Highway 64 in Crittenden County.

CEC

CEC is a privately held, multi-discipline engineering firm serving both public entities and private developers. We offer extensive services, which allow us to be involved with projects from conception, to design, to construction. Our multi-divisional company specializes in transportation design and planning, mechanical, electrical, structural, and civil engineering, power delivery design and inspection, surveying and mapping services, construction management and supervision, materials testing, and bridge design and inspections.

Brock Littau

Brock’s internship with CEC consisted of learning the basics of bridges and bridge design. He completed various tasks, such as designing with AutoCAD, checking bridge components, creating cost estimates, bridge inspections, report writing, and creative thinking.

Shelby Willy

Shelby was an Architectural Studies intern with CEC. During her time here, she learned about construction documents, architectural documents, and and building codes. She also worked on calculations for a Revit project and a storm shelter in a local city hall. These documents will go into the project manuals.

Isaiah Knott

Isaiah’s time with CEC was spent learning electrical transmission, distribution, and substations. He also compiled information from underground residential developments, such as cost, transformers installed, and problem solving with easements. About a month into his internship, he was able to work a storm that went through eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. This enabled him to see in person the standards and to work with customers directly.

Kal Smith

**Kal worked a variety of jobs with CEC, including creating distribution sheets, creating large conversion detail costs, creating original budgets and schedules, site visits, and land preparation.**

Giann Solano

Giann’s internship was centered around various site design projects like Edmond City Hall, Carter County Maintenance Facility, the Muskogee Nation Capital Complex, and other, smaller projects. From his team, he also learned about directing meetings, team and project management, survey processing, building permits, erosion control, and other information.

Kyle Evans

While at CEC, Kyle learned how to draft engineering plans on AutoCAD, generate quantities, do bridge geometrics, and create price estimates. He also helped with 17 bridge inspections and assisted with the reports to send to the City of OKC.

Caden McCormick

**Caden interned in the Construction Engineering Inspection department, learning about construction, project management, soil testing, quality management and control, and state testing standards.**

Hattie Hughs

This is Hattie’s second summer with CEC. This year, she got to see first hand what is involved in a roadway project, going out to the work site and working with the county to submit the paperwork needed for the project.

EST

EST is a rapidly growing multidisciplinary engineering ﬁrm with oﬃces in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and California. EST provides a dynamic and exciting environment and is dedicated to collaborative and responsive client service. We are committed to upholding our core values of honesty, integrity, and professionalism to the highest degree, from designing roads and bridges to providing surveys, environmental site assessments, construction management, geotechnical services, material testing, traﬃc studies, and site designs.

Ben Branam

Ben is a returning intern to EST. Because of this, he was able to immediately begin work by preparing existing and proposed typical sections, designing project specific removal plans, preparing construction sequencing design exhibits using Bentley MicroStation OpenRoads Designer, quickly and correctly interpret TxDOT as-built documents to reproduce existing roadway typical sections, prepare proposed project typical sections that meet TxDOT design requirements, and assisted EST staff preparing Level of Effort (scope and fee) documents for construction inspection services on TxDOT projects including the IH 35/35E/35W Construction Engineering & Inspection contract in Denton, TX.

Owen Langford

This is Owen’s second summer interning with EST. He spent this past summer interning at EST assisting in the materials testing and geotechnical areas. His material testing responsibilities consisted of observing the making of cylinders on jobs where concrete pours were occurring in the field. He also observed the proper handling and logging of those cylinders once they reached the lab, the correct way to store them and how to break and record them for strength. He assisted and learned how to take nuclear densities under the guidance of a certified technician using a Troxler 3440 Nuclear Gauge at job sites to get proper moisture and compaction readings based on Proctors that were provided specific to the jobsite. He also observed and assisted a CMT tech in inspecting the drilling and construction of piers over a three-week period in the construction of a school for Forney ISD. Owen also observed and assisted with our geotechnical drilling crew throughout the summer on TxDOT, municipal, county and ISD projects in and around the Melissa area. He help the crew with setting up and operating the drill rig to obtain bore samples to return to the lab for analysis. He also helped with the record keeping and logs for soil types, depths, and locations.

Jennifer Jaworski

Jennifer interned at EST’s Norman Roadway division, working on Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) projects and county projects. She has learned to use the rational method for determining discharge for the project’s revised drainage areas and to use the Federal Highway Administration’s HY- 8 and Hydraulic Toolbox to design drainage structures. Jennifer also assisted EST designer with three I-35 widening projects and other projects involving preparing roadway plans. She has also learned how to use Bentley MicroStation InRoads for the modeling of roadways, to read as-built construction plans, to use ODOT roadway and traffic design standards in the preparation of roadway and traffic plans, and to assist in construction cost estimates.

William Jordan

William interned at EST’s Norman Bridge division, working on Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) projects and county projects. One of these projects involved redesigning drainage areas of an intersection to account for the narrowing of the roadway and redesigning of drainage structures to account for the discharge of the revised drainage areas. He has learned to use the rational method for determining discharge for the project’s revised drainage areas and to use the Federal Highway Administration’s HY- 8 and Hydraulic Toolbox to design the necessary drainage structures. Additionally, he also assisted EST designer on projects such as the I-35 Corridor Study project and has also learned how to use Bentley MicroStation for the modeling of bridges, to read as-built construction plans, to use ODOT bridge design standards in the preparation of bridge plans, and to assist in construction cost estimates.

Louisiana Tech University

LTU is a partner of SPTC and a member of the consortium.

Reagan Treadway

This is Reagan’s second summer with the Jefferson Parish Engineering Department. She worked with Structural, Utility, Construction, and Traffic Engineers. Within Traffic engineering, Reagan did research on solutions for car collisions in canals, helped the engineers by doing research studies on car counts, and designed a parking lot on an abandoned street owned by the Parish.

Shelby Rigot

Over the course of Shelby’s summer internship, she worked on the design and analysis of transportation. Shelby also participated in working on a crash analysis to improve safety for a corridor and did some Microstation work in drawing up roadway plans. She also touched on the volume developments for build/no build plans and traffic signal phasings.

Navajo Technical University

NTU is a partner of SPTC.

Tyler Hosteen

Tyler majored in Welding at Navajo Technical University. His 2023 internship gave him a variety of experiences, such as learning heavy equipment, shingling and installing metal drip edges on a roof, and building a computer desk from scratch. He was also trained on SHOP BOT and input his own design.

Poe & Associates

Poe & Associates is dedicated to providing our clients with exceptional consulting engineering services. Since its founding in 1967, Poe has successfully built a reputation as a professional engineering and surveying firm with high integrity and dedication to excellent project results. We have continued to grow and expand our areas of practice in the fields of engineering, planning, and environmental services. Today, Poe is recognized as one of the leading civil engineering firms in the region. We maintain offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Varun Somishetty

Like fellow intern Olivia Davis, Varun was one of sixteen interns hired to perform pavement distress evaluations on the non-arterial street system in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also participated in the same training and project work, which will will be utilized by the City of Tulsa to aid in making decisions for funding levels necessary to prioritize maintenance needs for streets throughout Tulsa over the next several years.

Rachel Porter

Rachel worked extensively in the GIS program at Poe & Associates during the summer of 2023. Part of her work included assisting ODOT after learning about highway systems. She also assisted with on-demand right-of-way mapping projects and developing right-of-way plans, as well as UAV mapping and GIS data management. Her internship will continue through the Fall 2023 semester.

Other Participating Companies

2023 intern information is not available for these companies.

Olsson - We are Olsson, a nationally recognized, employee-owned engineering and design firm with a rich history of success. We’re here to improve communities by making them more sustainable, better connected, and more efficient. Simply put, we work to leave the world better than we found it.

LTAP - The Oklahoma Local Technical Assistance Program, LTAP, at Oklahoma State University is one of 51 LTAP Programs located throughout the United States. LTAP Programs provide training and technical assistance to government entities that plan, maintain and construct transportation systems at the local level. All Oklahoma LTAP training is free to local governments, with the exception of AASHTO/AWS Bridge Welding Certification, Mobile Air Conditioning Certification, and the Pilot/Escort Certification.

Meshek & Associates - Communities need trusted partners to safeguard today and build a stronger tomorrow – it’s why we exist. Imagine a community that is sustainable, resilient, and prosperous; let’s achieve it together.

Standard Testing - Standard Testing and Engineering Company (Standard Testing) was founded in Oklahoma City in 1951 as a Professional Engineering Firm specializing in Geotechnical, Construction Management, Building Envelop and Construction Materials Testing. Standard Testing is the oldest and largest geotechnical firm in Oklahoma. Standard Testing employs over 90 highly trained and experienced professionals, most with college-level and/or specialized technical training at our laboratory facilities in Oklahoma City, Enid, and Lawton and Tulsa.