{"id":203753,"date":"2015-03-19T13:52:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=20376"},"modified":"2015-03-19T13:52:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T13:52:46","slug":"ask-the-engineers-what-inspired-you-to-become-an-engineer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/03\/ask-the-engineers-what-inspired-you-to-become-an-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask The Engineers: What Inspired You To Become An Engineer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\"><em><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/ASKthumb.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19796 alignleft img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/ASKthumb.jpg\" alt=\"ASKthumb\" width=\"85\" height=\"85\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 85px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 85\/85;\" \/><\/a>Engineers have lots of answers to lots of questions. At Momentum, we figured we should take advantage\u00a0this fact with\u00a0Ask the Engineers, in which we ask one question to various folks in the School of Engineering. And readers, if you have a question you\u2019d like to pose to the engineers, please send it our way. <\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This week&#8217;s question: What inspired you to become an engineer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr.\u00a0Amvrossios C. Bagtzoglou<\/strong><br \/>\n <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/ross1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11649 alignleft img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/ross1.jpg\" alt=\"ross\" width=\"153\" height=\"200\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 153px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 153\/200;\" \/><\/a>Professor and Head of Department,\u00a0Civil &amp; Environmental Engineering<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I come from a family of engineers. My father was a Civil Engineer, designing and constructing bridges, buildings, and ports. My uncle was also a Civil Engineer and a Fellow of ASCE. Of course, like the typical son that I was, I wanted to be nothing like my father. I love water (I am an Aquarius) and as a kid, I loved playing with dirt. So, groundwater hydrology was the natural conclusion of my career path. It is really funny that I ended up pursuing this career within a Civil Engineering sub-specialization and have been a Professor of Civil Engineering since 1997 and the Head of the Department of Civil &amp; Environmental Engineering for the last 6 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr. Sangamesh G. Kumbar<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20400\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20400\" style=\"width: 143px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/kumbar.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-20400  img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/kumbar.jpg\" alt=\"kumbar\" width=\"143\" height=\"177\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 143px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 143\/177;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20400\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Sangamesh G. Kumbar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Assistant Professor\u00a0in Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and the Institute for Regenerative Engineering <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Engineering is the embodiment of evaluating ideas on their merits and addressing relevant, challenging real-world problems by designing practical, efficient, and effective solutions. As such, it allows me to delve into significant global problems and approach them in a hands-on manner to design and build appropriate technologies in an effort\u00a0to constantly address global needs and improve society. As a polymer engineer, my main focus has always been to research, design, and implement polymeric technologies for use in orthopaedic and other relevant clinical settings. My background allows me to make significant contributions to the fields of science and medicine to improve peoples\u2019 quality of life, fulfilling my career-long mission of advancing science for the benefit of mankind.<\/p>\n<p><em>Got a question for the engineers? Send it to weir@engr.UConn.edu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Got a question? SoE engineers have answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":20456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-203753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-19 19:39:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203753"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=203753"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=203753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}