Web Coordinator, American Society of Civil Engineers
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Summarize yourself and your professional experience in a few sentences (where you’re from, course of study, where you currently work, job title).
I live in the Las Vegas area. I moved to Vegas when I was a child, but I’m originally from Hawaii. I attended the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, where I received a Bachelors degree in early childhood education and a Masters degree in Educational Technology. I worked in Education for more than 10 years before deciding on a career swap. After enrolling in a full-stack web development course, I am now a Web Coordinator with ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers).
Please describe the main function of your organization and your current responsibilities.
ASCE is an organization that represents the civil engineering profession. They provide professional conferences and publications that help advance the field of civil engineering. I have been with ASCE for almost 8 months now where I work in the Publishing Technology side of our Publications Department. I manage the library website, where I ensure ASCE’s individual journal pages are up to date with the latest award, paper submittal, and collection content. I also edit and modify images and documents that go on the site. On the back end, I manage uploads of ASCE journals, books, and other content to our different external customers.
Please describe a key achievement in your scholarly communications career. How did you play a part in this?
I think thus far the biggest achievement has been getting this job in the first place! I am originally from the Education sector, where I worked as a teacher. The idea of a career change frightened me at first because I didn’t feel like anyone would give someone from such a narrow career field a chance. I took coding bootcamp courses while I worked full time, which was a challenge in and of itself! When I got the position at ASCE, I thought it was a fluke, but it turns out I’m a good fit for the position I am in. I feel like there will be more key achievements in the future because I have a good foundation to continue learning from.
What tools, websites, and organizations do you find most valuable for your career development?
I have quite a few go-to’s as far as websites and organizations I frequent as invaluable tools in my career. The first is W3Schools. There are times when I need to use CSS to design pages. I used W3Schools during my bootcamp, and it is still helping me when facing layout challenges. I’m also a fan of The Fridays @ 4 Society. I have been to several sessions, and I enjoy the community that they have fostered. The topics they cover have been great for developing my career and hearing other perspectives from all different fields and industries. Their panel discussion on the value of mentorship is still one of my favorites that I have attended.
What are some of the surprises/obstacles that you’ve encountered during your career?
The biggest surprise for me in my career thus far was all the steps that go into the world of scholarly publishing. There are a lot of steps in the process of getting an article or a book created and published. It surprised me how intricate the editing process was and the back and forth that goes between the publisher and authors. My job focuses solely on content that has already been created and getting it out for people to see, so I’m still in awe of the process.
