We’re excited to announce that the 2026 ASCE Richmond Branch Scholarships have been successfully selected! This year, we received numerous outstanding applications from students at universities across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Two students, Taran Gupta and Sijie Liu were selected to receive $1,000 scholarships in recognition of their academic achievement and dedication to civil engineering. The selection process was highly competitive, and we sincerely thank the ASCE member volunteers who generously dedicated their time to review applications. Their thoughtful evaluations were crucial in selecting this year’s recipients.
We are incredibly proud of both of our 2026 scholarship recipients. Here’s a summary of each of these exceptional students, including some information about their backgrounds and aspirations.
Taran Gupta graduated from the University of Virginia in May 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and will be continuing there to pursue a Master of Engineering with a concentration in structural engineering. He has gained hands-on industry experience through internships at NASA, Whiting-Turner, ICF, and Mortenson, and spent three years as a teaching assistant for Introduction to Civil Engineering at UVA. His senior capstone was the ASCE Steel Bridge Competition, where he helped UVA secure 3rd place at the VA Regional Conference. He spends most of his free time pursuing music, whether that be through the Cavalier Marching Band, pep band, concert band, or wind ensemble. In the future, he hopes to work in renewable energy, creating a more sustainable and equitable environment.
Sijie Liu is a Ph.D. student in Civil Engineering at Old Dominion University. He holds an M.Sc. in Urban Design and International Planning from the University of Manchester and a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering from Hebei University of Technology. Before beginning his doctoral studies, he worked as an Intelligent Transportation and Simulation Scientist at the Tianjin Municipal Engineering Design & Research Institute. His work involved connected and autonomous vehicle testing, V2X infrastructure deployment, traffic simulation and planning. His current research focuses on VDOT-funded transportation projects, automated vehicle simulation, and AI-driven transportation data analytics.