Kelly Knight

Kelly J Knight

Title
Engineering Manager
Organization
Bechtel National, Inc.
Location
Reston, VA, United States
Kelly Knight
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Biography
Kelly J Knight is the Manager of Bechtel’s Advanced Simulation and Analysis. She is responsible for managing multiple specialists in the fields of computational fluid dynamics, computational structural mechanics and advanced engineering visualization techniques. Kelly’s background experience includes design studies/analyses, computing infrastructure, experiments and conducting surveys/reviews in support of Bechtel projects and outside clients. Kelly’s field of expertise is in fluid dynamics, heat transfer, experimental methods, numerical analysis, turbulent mixing applications, chemical/biological dispersion and technical writing. Kelly has presented papers in field recognized conferences. Kelly holds a BS in Applied Mathematics from Weber State University, an MS and PHD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Utah.
  • I am willing to be contacted by educators for possible speaking engagements in schools or in after school programs or summer camps.
  • I am willing to be interviewed by interested students via email.
Answers by Dr. Kelly J Knight
More Questions
hello, I have a question on my future career. I'm a master student in civil engineering and about to graduate next summer. I'm thinking about applying for phd study or going right away into the industry. Is a phd degree favored in future work in industry? Or is the experience important to an academia path? Should I work first or study for my phd degree first? Thank you for your kind help.

Dear Xiaoyu, Your question is a good one. I hope that I can help answer it. The requirement or advantage of having a PHD definitely depends on the field of research and the companies or labs that you are interested in. An example is Boeing. It is a private company but has hundreds of PhDs to design the aircraft. National labs, of course, will favor a PHD. Then there are companies like mine where there are only 50 of us in a company of 40,000 people. In our industry, many problems can be solved using common engineering methods and only a few need special tools like the ones that you learn in a PHD program. Keep in mind that my advice is from a fluid dynamics background in mechanical engineering. I am not too familiar with the civil engineering field. However, I work for a construction company and interface with many other companies in the course of a project. Those companies have many civil engineers and I see a similar trend: only a few problems in civil engineering need the tools developed in a graduate program. I personally wanted a PHD but did not want to go to a National Lab. I wanted to apply my knowledge out in the world as opposed to doing more research. It was definitely harder to find a job but I am very happy with my career. However, I recognize that you do not need a PHD to have a fulfilling career. There are many students that go out into industry after a Master's and then go back to get their PHD. It can be done but I have heard that it is harder to do. Dig deep and see if you really want the PHD. If so, I recommend to stay in school and finish now. I suggest that you search out companies and national labs that are doing things that you are interested in. See what qualifications those jobs need. The Federal government and state governments also use civil engineers. Check them out as well. Searching these companies will also help you see if you want to stay on to get a PHD. You may come across a job that you are very interested in and does not need a PHD. I hope that my point of view helps. Sincere regards, Kelly

More Questions
I am working as a high school math teacher. When I was an undergraduate math student, I have taken some industrial engineering classes and loved them. Now I'm thinking to go back to school to get a master's degree in IE. I'm in my late 20's. Is it too late to become an engineer?

I obtained my Masters around age 35 and my PHD at 41. My initial reasoning was that I was very dissatisfied with what I was doing at the time and made a commitment to myself to walk the path of fulfillment in all of my life and that meant an upper degree at that time. As I pursued my degrees, which were harder to do because I was older and had been out of school for awhile, I figured out that I would be old with or without the degrees. I definitely wanted to put myself in the best place to succeed so my decision was to continue to pursue the degrees. Now I have an exciting engineering job and work on some of the largest projects in the world. I chose a company with a healthy lets-dig-in-and-build-it culture which puts me with energetic and positive, forward-looking people. I made a decision long ago that being old was not going to stop me and I have never looked back since.