Patricia Varela

Dr. Varela was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela where she obtained her Geological Engineering bachelor's degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela and arrived at the US to pursue grad school in 2010. She completed her Masters and Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Texas A&M University, and now works for the geohazards team of Geosyntec Consultants Inc. from The Woodlands office. Her experience as a consultant engineer includes offshore and onshore site characterization using geological and geotechnical field surveying techniques and desktop analysis for the installation of offshore wind farm cable routes, pipeline routing, and ROW integrity assessment. Her professional practice has also included risk-based decision-making hazard, vulnerability and risk mapping using GIS, remote sensing techniques, and geostatistics. 

As part of Patricia's volunteering experience, she was the Founding President of the SUT-TAMU student chapter, the first official student-driven branch of the organization in the US. She currently serves as the Chair of the Young Professionals branch (SUT-US YP) and is strongly motivated to mentor and support students on their path to become successful and thriving young professionals.

Something about me:
"Very rarely I have achieved any of my ambitious goals in one try. It usually took many attempts and a support system of friends and family that gave me advice and constructive criticism that helped me overcome every time."