Amber Spears is a recent graduate of the civil engineering doctoral program at Jacksonville State University, where she studied geotechnical engineering as a graduate research assistant and teaching assistant. She worked for seven years in industry following obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s in civil engineering with a focus in geotechnology from the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively. Since leaving industry to return to graduate school full time, she has returned to industry to work at Onyx Enterprise as a civil engineering consulting firm headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, for one and a half years.
In her doctoral program, she performed a series of civil engineering services. including site characterization, slope stability, hydrogeology, geomorphology, and quality assurance/control. She performed these services for several federal, state, and district facilities, particularly those that owned levees, embankments, or dunes.
Her research focuses on sustainable infrastructure for emergency preparedness and response. She also has a background in social justice regarding infrastructure and pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.