Kristen Corlay Sanmiguel arrived as a first-year student at Hopkins intent on improving life in communities like her home city of Monterrey, Mexico. Now a senior majoring in civil and systems engineering, she’s made big strides toward that goal—on a variety of fronts.
Last June, Corlay Sanmiguel led a Whiting School undergraduate team to a top-five spot in the finals of the 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers Sustainable Solutions Competition, held at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. The task? To create a sustainable city block, considering both the environment and the community. The team had to incorporate stormwater management systems, green infrastructure, and multimodal transportation.
“I had a strong interest in how sustainability can coexist with engineering and urban design,” says Corlay Sanmiguel. Her team’s winning entry included plans for a two-story community center with a sloped green roof and a glass curtain wall with ceramic rods to deflect heat and glare. “It was made out of mass timber, a low-carbon material,” she notes.
A year earlier, Corlay Sanmiguel’s research on resilience and earthquakes in Mexico City helped her win the Walt Disney data analytics competition and a trip to Disney’s Data & Analytics Conference.
“My dad grew up in Mexico City and I learned about the 1985 Mexico City earthquake from him and my extended family,” she says. “The competition was a way for me to put together something so people could see this important story.” Her data analysis was informed by an earlier paper in which she examined how earthquakes affect some areas more than others based on land type, and how economic stability is related to increased risk of earthquake damage.
“I made my own code in Python to measure the seismic response spectrum, I ran geospatial data analysis, and I read building codes and policies from the last century up until 2017,” she says.
At Hopkins, Corlay Sanmiguel has also continued fine-tuning a web app for civic engagement in Mexico that she launched in 2020 with co-founder Valeria Colunga. “With Cabilde, we are building a database that will make it easier for constituents to find their representatives, bills, and congress voting results,” she explains.
Corlay Sanmiguel plans to pursue a master’s in urban planning and continue working on Cabilde and data transparency in Mexico. “My goal is to have my own engineering design firm and specialize in Latin American projects relating to sustainability and accessibility in cities,” she says.