Whitehead named 2019 Undergraduate co-op student of the year

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is pleased to announce that fourth year Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering student Johanna Whitehead has been named the 2019 winner of Carleton’s Co-op Student of the Year Award.

Whitehead is completing a 16-month work term, which began in May 2019, as an Intern Engineer at Roney Engineering, a specialized structural engineering firm based in Kingston, Ontario. She was nominated by Chris Roney, her direct supervisor and President of Roney Engineering, for her exceptional performance and capabilities demonstrated throughout her work term.

In his nomination form, Roney included one of Whitehead’s most notable accomplishments was the design of a unique accessibility ramp for a historical building at Queen’s University. Whitehead dedicated time, working through her lunch and past normal business hours, to devise a successful design and to ensure the client’s needs were fully met. As a direct result of her initiative and dedication, the client was extremely pleased and the project led to additional work opportunities for Roney Engineering.

“[Johanna] has, on her own and with very minimal guidance, dramatically expanded our firm’s services in areas such as advanced renderings of buildings and development sites, vehicle path of travel analysis, site plan analysis and design, and architectural conservation. These are services that we were not in a position to offer to our clients until Ms. Whitehead joined our firm.”

Roney ended his letter of support for Whitehead’s nomination by saying, “I have never encountered a more gifted young future engineer than Johanna. She has definitely inspired me to hire other co-op students from Carleton in the future.”

Presented each year by the Co-operative Education Office, Carleton’s Co-op Awards recognize the outstanding achievements, contributions, and performance of our co-op students and their employers.