Sierra Smith, M.S., E.I.T.

Sierra joined WSE as a junior hydraulic engineer in the fall of 2023 and is excited to apply her knowledge and skills to hydraulic and sediment related challenges in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Sierra completed her Honors Bachelor’s degree in Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University and her Master’s in Biological Systems Engineering with a focus in hydraulic engineering, river mechanics, and fluvial geomorphology at Virginia Tech. Her undergraduate thesis focused on responses of beaver populations to disturbance gradients around Mount St. Helens. Her graduate thesis developed methods of determining sediment size and distribution via the metric of embeddedness from field measurements and remotely sensed data in gravel bed streams and assessing impact on aquatic biota.

She enjoys listening to biologists and learning new things about rivers and their surrounding ecosystems.