Thanh Do Ngoc, CEE PhD student in structural engineering, was one of 8 recipients nationwide to receive the highly competitive Mortar Board National Foundation fellowship for 2015-16. His faculty advisor is Prof. Filip Filippou.
Recipients are chosen based on a demonstrated record of academic excellence, strong recommendations, scholarship promise and Mortar Board involvement.
Thanh Do Ngoc was born and raised in Vietnam, where a major bridge collapse in 2007 profoundly affected his desire to become a civil engineer. He felt “a great passion and responsibility to help improve the civil engineering system, not only in Vietnam, but also everywhere in the world.”
To reach that goal, he obtained an undergraduate degree in civil engineering in 2012 from the University of the Pacific, which awarded him the Academic Excellence Award for highest departmental distinction. Do Ngoc served as leader of many student organizations, including the Knolens chapter of Mortar Board.
He went on to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a master’s degree and is pursuing his doctorate in civil (structural) engineering as the Zelma Patchin-Oklahoma State/Washington State Fellow.