Abigail Beck
By Alex Keimig
Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Abigail Beck has known from the start that she wanted to both teach and do research in her field, which made joining the Cullen faculty in early 2025 a perfect fit.
Beck’s research centers around the intersection of natural hazards, structural engineering and community functionality with a focus on unlocking better decision-making and design codes to help improve community resilience. It’s a unique combination of engineering and social science, and it has even inspired her to create an infrastructure decision-making board and computer game, which is being finalized for mass distribution this year.
My love for teaching also continued to blossom as I was able to mentor other students, get in the classroom and broaden some of the paradigms in structural engineering education to include resilience.Abigail Beck
“I did my undergraduate education at The University of Texas at Austin, so I wasn’t too far away from Houston when Hurricane Harvey hit,” she said. “My roommate’s home flooded, and seeing the utter devastation that a lot of communities faced made that light bulb click on for me. We’re seeing these hazards, and we’re seeing resilient people, but can we say the same about our infrastructure? A building not falling down is very important, but there are a lot of other issues to consider when non-catastrophic failures occur too.”
In graduate school, Beck had the opportunity to get involved with the NIST Center of Excellence for Community Resilience, working alongside engineers, social scientists, economists and urban planners around the issues of resilience research.
“My love for teaching also continued to blossom as I was able to mentor other students, get in the classroom and broaden some of the paradigms in structural engineering education to include resilience,” she said.
“Many of these resilience issues are more complex and therefore haven’t been as well-incorporated into earlier stages of the curriculum. I’m trying to figure out how we can bring appropriate levels of information to our students earlier.”
Beck has greatly enjoyed her first year as a UH faculty member, describing it as both “a bit overwhelming” and “very exciting.”
“In the KEEN Framework, curiosity, connections and creating value are the three Cs of an entrepreneurial mindset, and engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset transform the world. My teaching philosophy is really inspired by preparing students to know the fundamentals but also to see the broader impacts of what they’re learning and to be able to apply that and take ownership of their ability to make a positive change in our world.”