CAREER STORY
Standing Out
Wystan Carswell’s love of math and science set her on the track to becoming
a high-level geostructural engineer, but her love of words has also helped
drive her success
By Mark Halsall
Wystan Carswell is a geostructural engineer
who joined the prestigious environmental and
geotechnical consulting firm Haley & Aldrich in
Boston, Mass. in 2015. Starting as a staff engineer, Carswell worked
her way up to the position of senior technical specialist in 2019 and
is now one of Haley & Aldrich’s resident experts on soil-structure
interaction problems.
This, along with her master’s degree in structural engineering
and Ph.D. in structural and geotechnical engineering, both from
the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, makes Carswell stand
out, but there’s something else that also sets her apart from many
of her peers.
Carswell is an engineer with a literary bent (hint: she’s reading
Moby Dick – for fun), and she credits her communication skills
for helping her achieve the level of success that she’s had in the
engineering field. Carswell talked about that and much more,
when PileDriver caught up with her in a recent telephone interview.
At what point in your life did you know you were
interested in pursuing a career in engineering?
Wystan Carswell (WC): That would be during my senior year of
high school. I really liked my math and science classes and solving
puzzles, so the idea of a job of technical problem-solving was very
appealing. You should do what you like to work hard at, and those
were the types of things that I didn't mind putting the time in for.
How did you get your start in engineering?
WC: After high school, I first went to a local college that my dad
taught at so that I could go tuition-free for that first year. There,
Wystan Carswell
I stocked up on all my Gen Ed requirements, and then I went to
Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. for civil engineering. I liked that
Lafayette was a liberal arts college with a strong engineering
program; it wasn't a pure technical school where I was going to
be surrounded by a bunch of other technical nerds. It was an
environment that was going to allow me to develop more of those
liberal arts skills of reading, writing, communication. And it was an
undergraduate-only institution, so the professors are 100% focused
on the undergraduate educational experience, and that was very
appealing, too.
Why did you feel the need to develop those
communication skills? Do you think it’s helped you in
your career?
WC: Most of my family are liberal arts majors, so the idea that
reading, writing and communication are important certainly came
from there. I knew I wanted to develop a broad range of skills,
and I certainly feel like it’s been beneficial later on down the line.
Photo courtesy of Haley & Aldrich
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