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AL
Villanova University · B.S. Civil Engineering · Class of 2027

ANTHONY
LOH

Civil Engineer GIS & Spatial Analysis Transportation Equity
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Featured Research · Main Focus

Winter Storm Uri.

A funded, 100-hour study of how one storm reshaped access across Texas, built as an interactive 3D explorer.

Funded · John Hennessy Undergraduate Research Fund

Winter Storm Uri struck Texas in February 2021. Over a mentored 100-hour study, I quantified its impact on mobility, healthcare access, and transportation equity across the state's major metros, integrating five datasets into a single spatial picture.

The Question

Who lost access during the storm, and where did mobility, healthcare, and infrastructure failures overlap most severely?

The Data

Five integrated datasets: mobility, healthcare visits, mortality, utility outages, and demographics.

The Stack

Spatial analysis in ArcGIS Pro and R, presented as a standalone interactive 3D web explorer.

Inside the study

Uri hit Texas in February 2021, taking the grid, water systems and road network down together. The study treats that as one compound failure rather than a weather event.

Funded through the John Hennessy Undergraduate Research Fund and run as a mentored 100-hour study.

Five datasets integrated into a single spatial frame: mobility, healthcare visits, mortality, utility outages and demographics.

Analysis in ArcGIS Pro and R, covering the state’s major metros so losses of access can be compared between them rather than averaged away.

The guiding question is distributional, not aggregate: who lost access, and where did mobility, healthcare and infrastructure failures overlap worst?

Published as a standalone interactive 3D web explorer so the spatial results can be read directly instead of flattened into figures.

View 3D Research Site ↗
About

Engineering systems for
people, not just plans.

Undergraduate researcher analyzing Winter Storm Uri's impact on Texas mobility and healthcare access using GIS and statistical methods. My work spans geotechnical analysis, environmental design, urban development, and transportation equity research, with a minor in Geography that keeps the human and spatial dimensions of infrastructure at the center.

Based in Brooklyn, NY.

Case Studies

Selected work.

Nine projects. Two live interactive transit maps and three in-depth engineering case studies, plus research, prototyping, and analytics work, each one documented with the methods it used and the numbers it produced.

2 interactive maps 3 case studies 2 research 1 prototype 1 analytics
FEATURED Summer 2026

Transit Accessibility Mapping

SystemsNYC Subway & SEPTA
DeliverableTwo live web maps

Accessibility data for two transit systems is published, but not legible. I processed 2M+ records from public GTFS feeds and ridership data through a Python normalization pipeline, then built a custom JavaScript layer that puts station-level access on a map you can actually read.

Role

Sole author. Data pipeline, GeoJSON authoring, map interaction, and front end.

Tools & Methods
Python GTFS Feeds GeoPandas GeoJSON JavaScript Ridership Weighting
2M+
NYC subway complexes scored on accessibility and weekday ridership
2
transit systems mapped station by station, both live on this site
Open the maps
New York

Board here, but you may not get back

NYC subway complexes wheelchair accessible in one direction only, ranked by riders affected rather than stations counted.

Open the map →
Philadelphia

SEPTA

SEPTA stops mapped across the Philadelphia region, from a GeoJSON dataset I built.

Open the map →
CASE 01 Aug 2025 to Present

Public Library Geotechnical Report

DeliverableConsulting design report
SiteProposed Pennsylvania public library

A proposed Pennsylvania public library needed its subsurface evaluated before design could move forward. I co-authored a geotechnical design report assessing whether on-site fill could safely carry the structure, how much the ground would settle, and how green-infrastructure permeability and retaining-wall backfill would perform.

Role

Co-author. Ran the lab program and wrote the geotechnical analysis and design recommendations.

Tools & Methods
ASTM Compaction Consolidation Hydraulic Conductivity Direct Shear Settlement Prediction
4
ASTM lab programs run: compaction, consolidation, hydraulic conductivity, and direct shear
1
design report co-authored covering fill suitability, settlement, permeability, and backfill
What the labs showed

Sieve analysis put the site soil at 25.4% gravel, 71.7% sand, 2.9% fines, a well-graded sand with gravel, classified SW.

Atterberg limits came back at a liquid limit of 53%, plastic limit 26.2%, and plasticity index 26.8%: enough fines to hold considerable water across a wide plastic range.

Compaction peaked at a maximum dry density of 110.9 lb/ft³ at 10.8% optimum water content. Specifying 95% of that gives a field target of 105.4 lb/ft³ inside an 8.9–12.9% moisture window.

Consolidation gave an initial void ratio of 0.850, a compression index of 0.176 and a swell index of 0.0183, the inputs behind the settlement prediction for the square footing.

Gravimetric water content climbed steadily with depth, then jumped sharply below 19 feet, matching exactly where the boring log starts describing the soil as moist.

Of the two adjacent borings offered as fill, B-20 (pale brown, well-graded, subangular sand) is usable; B-21 turned out to be high-plasticity white clay (CH) and was ruled out.

Verdict to the client: the site soil performs well enough as fill and as green-infrastructure media that construction should move forward.

CASE 02 Spring 2025

Wetland Site Assessment & ADA Path Redesign

DeliverableSite assessment & ADA redesign
SiteVillanova North Campus

A stormwater wetland and its adjacent pedestrian path needed a performance check and an accessibility upgrade. I assessed how well the wetland was reducing flow and managing chloride loading, mapped groundwater behavior across the site, then redesigned the path to meet ADA standards.

Role

Site assessment, statistical analysis, and ArcGIS Pro / AutoCAD deliverables.

Tools & Methods
ArcGIS Pro AutoCAD Chloride T-Testing Flow-Rate Analysis Groundwater Contour Mapping Cumulative Probability Plots
4
analyses: chloride t-test, flow-rate reduction, groundwater contours, and cumulative probability
ADA
compliant pedestrian path redesign delivered in GIS and CAD
What the analysis showed

Across 34 borings, the groundwater table falls from about 419.5 ft in the northwest to 405.8 ft at the basin, so the wetland is a discharge area, quietly refilling from the Law School site between storms.

Chloride concentration in versus out is statistically indistinguishable under salted conditions (two-tailed t-test, p = 0.808).

Chloride load, though, drops hard: 4,015 kg/day in to 968 kg/day out. The wetland is not diluting salt, it is holding water back.

Storm flow rate is significantly reduced through the wetland (one-tailed t-test, p = 0.0030), confirming real peak-discharge attenuation.

Cumulative probability plots put a 25.3% chance of exceeding the EPA chronic chloride limit (230 mg/L) during storms, and 8.3% for the acute limit (860 mg/L).

Median rainfall per event has not moved by decade, but extremes have: no event above 4 in before 1951, one above 4 in every decade after 1952, and every decade since 1992 topping 5 in, reaching 8 in.

The existing path breaks the ADA 8.33% maximum slope at Stations 1+50–2+15 and 5+25–6+75, and floods at the lampposts.

The redesign is a net-fill path holding 2 ft of clearance above the groundwater table and clear of the 405.2 ft wetland baseline, verified with AutoCAD profiles, cross-sections and volume calculations.

CASE 03 Fall 2024

Hotel & Casino Development, Philadelphia Waterfront

DeliverableDue diligence & cost estimate
Site5000 Richmond St, Philadelphia

A developer was weighing a 262,000 sq ft hotel and casino on a Philadelphia waterfront brownfield. I led the site due diligence across FEMA flood zones, zoning, wetlands, soil conditions, and Superfund proximity, then estimated cost and earthwork to test whether the site could carry the program.

Role

Led site due diligence, cost estimation, and cut/fill earthwork analysis.

Tools & Methods
RS Means FEMA Flood Zones Zoning Analysis Wetlands Review Cut/Fill Volumes Brownfield Due Diligence
$73.9M
proposed complex evaluated for site feasibility
262,000
sq ft waterfront brownfield assessed
80+
survey data points used to compute cut and fill volumes
What due diligence turned up

The parcel is split I-3 Heavy Industrial and ICMX Industrial Commercial Mixed Use, both prohibit casinos, so the program depends on rezoning to SP-ENT.

That SP-ENT envelope allows 300 ft / 30 stories and 400% gross floor area (600% beside a sports stadium), with a waterfront setback, 25 ft from residential parking, and 10–30% minimum open area.

Four Superfund sites sit in the area, Franklin Slag Pile closest at a hazard ranking of 50.2, all active but far enough out to pose no direct impact.

FEMA puts base flood elevation at 11 ft, so the whole complex was designed to a 12.5 ft design flood elevation.

The only wetland in play is the Delaware River and the stream behind the site, classified Riverine R1UBV. New Jersey wetlands across the river are out of scope.

Soils are Urban Land with a restrictive layer just 25 cm down and bedrock beyond 200 cm, shallow foundations are constrained, deeper excavation is viable.

Earthwork balances badly: 5.1M ft³ of fill needed against 4.8M ft³ available to cut, leaving roughly 300,000 ft³ to import.

Program that fits: a 146,000 sq ft casino footprint at ~36 ft, hotel floors above, 828 parking spaces, a 1,000 ft driving range and 1.5M sq ft of green area.

Cost stack: $48.45M casino, $10.59M earthwork, $1.46M parking structures, $1.04M landscape, $73.85M all-in with contingency.

More Projects

Research, prototypes & analytics.

Shorter engagements and independent work, in one grid that new projects drop straight into.

04 Research Paper

Microplastics in Glacial Meltwater

Plastics under 5 mm now reach the planet's coldest, most remote places. This paper traces how they enter glaciers by air and water, how meltwater releases them, and what that means downstream for wildlife, water supplies, and human health.

RoleSole author
TypeLiterature synthesis
Literature Synthesis Atmospheric Deposition Cryosphere Systems Contaminant Pathways
365
particles per m² per day of microplastic fallout measured in the French Pyrenees
20 of 21
Arctic and European snow samples found to contain microplastics
What the literature shows

Microplastics reach glaciers primarily by air. In the French Pyrenees, an ostensibly untouched alpine landscape, researchers measured 365 particles per m² per day arriving through rain and dry fallout.

The contamination is effectively global: 20 of 21 snow samples across Europe and the Arctic contained microplastics, with some Alpine snow running to thousands of particles per litre.

Even Antarctic snow far from research stations averages 29 particles per litre, and fibres are the dominant shape, pointing at synthetic clothing as a major long-range source.

Polyethylene and polyamide particles turned up in winter snow layers of a core drilled through Iceland’s remote Vatnajökull ice cap.

Once deposited, particles are buried as snow densifies into firn and ice, so glaciers act as a stratified archive and a delayed source, releasing decades of accumulation back out with meltwater.

That meltwater feeds the rivers and lakes downstream communities drink from and fish in, which is what turns a remote-sensing curiosity into a water-supply and food-system problem.

05 Prototype

Garden Arm: Adaptive Gardening Tool

A forearm-mounted, tool-agnostic gardening aid for people with arthritis. Designed around Fatima, 66, who wanted to keep tending her vegetable garden without loading her wrists or fingers, carried from cardboard and Velcro through to 3D-printed TPU parts.

DisciplineHuman-centered design
Team5 designers
OutputWorking prototype
Fusion 360 TPU 3D Printing Iterative Prototyping Accessibility
3
fidelities built: cardboard and Velcro, curved TPU port, then a functional printed slider
Zero
wrist or finger grip needed to hold and use a garden tool
How the design developed

The brief started from a person, not a product: Fatima, 66, has chronic hand and back pain and wanted to keep tending her vegetable garden independently and for longer stretches.

Arthritis research framed the constraints, joint pain, stiffness, swelling and reduced range of motion, so the design goal became transferring load off the wrist and fingers and onto the forearm.

The low-fidelity build was cardboard with a Velcro strap that fits any arm size, plus a tool port that slides in, already usable without gripping, with a cloth sleeve underneath to stop irritation.

The medium-fidelity version curved the port and moved it to TPU for comfort and less bulk, and made the slider genuinely functional: it inserts, removes, and stays put under load.

Port and slider were modelled in Fusion 360 and 3D printed in TPU, chosen specifically because its flexibility is what makes the clamp comfortable.

Known limits, honestly held: TPU makes the clamp relatively weak, only a certain range of tool sizes fits, and the Velcro loop is itself hard to fasten with arthritic hands.

Next steps: three clamp sizes (S/M/L), material variants per tool type, and an arm-brace-style strap instead of a single loop.

06 Conceptual Design

Solar-Powered Desalination, Mozambique

A solar-thermal desalination plant sited in Pemba: suspended on underwater metal framing, heated by conduction through layered filters, and run on sun-tracking panels with tetrahedrite thermoelectric conversion and a 24-hour reserve battery.

Team4 engineers
OutputDesign & cost feasibility
Solar Thermal Design Thermoelectric Conversion Cost Estimation Systems Design
937.5M
litres per day projected, against a 150M L/day design goal
10%
thermoelectric conversion versus 2.5% for competing materials, at $4/kg
$100.2M
first-year cost modelled across land, build, labour, and maintenance
How the system performs

Target is Mozambique, sized against a national need of 150 million litres per day. The four-subunit design projects 937.5 million L/day, over six times the goal.

The unit is suspended on underwater metal framing with a conduction heater on the lower floor, layered filters, and a hollow chamber where steam rises and condensate is collected.

Power comes from sun-tracking solar panels that rotate through the day, backed by a 24-hour reserve battery so production does not stop overnight.

The material bet is tetrahedrite thermoelectrics: 10% conversion against roughly 2.5% for competing materials, at $4/kg versus $24–146/kg.

Splitting into four subunits rather than one large plant came out cheaper to build and easier to stage.

First-year cost modelled at $100.2M: $1.25M land in Pemba, $8.08M manufacturing and prototype, $15M provisions, $73.0M annual maintenance and $1.93M annual labour.

07 Data Analysis

Does Weight Class Predict How a UFC Fight Ends?

An R study testing weight class against method of victory across UFC bouts. The division a fight is contested at does not tell you who wins — but it does predict how the fight ends, and the effect runs cleanly in one direction as you move up the weights.

VariablesWeight class × method of victory
ToolingR / R-Studio, ggplot2
RoleSole analyst
What the data showed

The heavier the division, the more fights end by knockout. KO share of outcomes rises step by step from the lightest classes to heavyweight.

Submissions move the other way. Lighter divisions finish on the mat far more often; grappling finishes thin out as weight goes up.

Decisions fall off with weight too. Heavier bouts are the least likely to reach the judges — they get finished before the scorecards matter.

Takeaway: weight class is a usable predictor of finish type and fight length, not of the winner.

R R-Studio Data Visualization Statistical Analysis
+

Next project slot

Duplicate any card in this grid, then swap the number, tag, title, summary, method chips, and file link. The grid reflows on its own, nothing else needs touching.

Skills

The toolkit.

Technical competencies across engineering analysis, spatial computing, and data science.

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Contact

Let's work together.

Open to research collaborations, internships, and civil engineering opportunities.

Engineering Resume ↓ General Resume ↓
Emailaloh@villanova.edu ↗ Phone(646) 719-4053 ↗ LinkedInin/anthonyyloh ↗ LocationBrooklyn, NY ↗

Villanova University · Class of 2027 / B.S. Civil Engineering · Minor in Geography
ASCE · Globeplotters · Sports Analytics Club · © 2026 Anthony Loh · Brooklyn, NY