NDNishkarsha Dawadi

Outreach & leadership

Bringing earthquake engineering to the community

As a founding officer of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Student Chapter at Utah State, I served as its inaugural secretary and later its president (2024–2025). Together we brought shake tables, geophones and earthquake science to students, families and K–12 classrooms.

Glacier National Park · captured by yours truly

2023Chapter founded in January
100+Visitors at each Community Night
2Friedman Family Visiting Professionals hosted
2025USU’s first Seismic Design Competition team
Nishkarsha with Dr. Makdisi and USU faculty
With Dr. Makdisi during the lab tours, 2024
Nishkarsha with Dr. Thornley and USU faculty
With Dr. Thornley, 2025
Visiting professionals · 2024 & 2025

Bringing practicing engineers to campus

Through EERI's Friedman Family Visiting Professionals Program, I organized two visits as chapter president:

  • Dr. Faiz Makdisi (Gannett Fleming), March 2024: a lecture on the Oroville Dam spillways and tours of the Utah Water Research Laboratory and the SMASH Lab.
  • Dr. John Thornley (WSP), March 2025: a lecture on liquefaction mitigation of coral sand in the Marshall Islands.
Chapter members explaining a demonstration to visitors
Community Night at the Taggart Student Center
Children trying the stomp game at an EERI booth
Hands-on demos for young visitors
Students testing a tower on a shake table
Shake-table testing, Community Night 2023
EERI chapter table at a community event
The EERI table at Community Night
Community outreach · 2023–2025

Community Nights and STEM outreach

Every year the chapter ran hands-on earthquake demonstrations for the public: shake tables where kids test their own towers, and a geophone game that asks “How strong can you stomp?”

  • Community Nights in 2023, 2024 and 2025, each drawing 100+ local families and K–12 students
  • STEM Night at Wilson Elementary (2024) and Day on the Quad at USU (2024)
  • Engineering State summer camp for high school students (2023)
USU team with their balsa tower
The USU team with their tower
USU team at UC Berkeley
The team at UC Berkeley
Seismic Design Competition · 2025

Starting USU’s first competition team

During my term as president, the chapter put together Utah State’s first team for the EERI Seismic Design Competition. Six undergraduates designed, built and shake-tested a balsa-wood tower and competed at UC Berkeley in 2025, where they were named Rookie of the Year.

Read the USU news story ↗

Founding members of the USU EERI chapter at the College of Engineering sign
Founding members, January 2023
Students at a resume workshop with Sunrise Engineering
Resume workshop with Sunrise Engineering, 2023
Chapter life

Building a student community

Beyond outreach, the chapter connects students with the profession: a resume workshop with Sunrise Engineering, tower-building socials, and talks from visiting engineers.