Michael O’Rourke has been a professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, since 1974. He has taught over 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, Professor O’Rouke supervised 62 students for Master of Science theses and 10 for Ph. D dissertations. From 1997 to 2017, Professor O’Rouke served as Chair of the Snow and Rain Loads Subcommittee of the American Society of Civil Engineer’s ASCE 7, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures. He is a Former Chair of the ASCE 7 Snow and Rain Loads Subcommittee and is a Fellow of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI). He is the nation’s foremost snow expert and is known for his extensive snow load research, authoring many articles and guides related to snow loads.

Stephanie Slocum is the Founder and CEO of Engineers Rising LLC and is a career and business strategist for engineers. She is the author of She Engineers, chair of the Structural Engineering Institute’s (SEI’s) Business Practices Committee and has also been elected to the SEI Board of Governors. (stephanie@engineersrising.com)