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                                News Feature                                     6/27/2007

Sonia Maassel Jacobsen named Recipient of the ASABE 2007 PEI Professional Engineer of the Year Award

Sonia Maassel Jacobsen, a hydraulic engineer at the NRCS State Office in St. Paul, Minnesota has been named the recipient of the 2007 PEI Professional Engineer of the Year Award for her outstanding leadership in water resources engineering and service to the engineering profession.  Jacobsen is only the third recipient of this award given by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE, formerly ASAE), which celebrated its 100th anniversary at the June 2007 annual international meeting held in Minneapolis. 

Jacobsen, hydraulic engineer, from St. Paul, Minnesota has been widely recognized for her expertise in the emerging field of wetland hydrology.  Sonia has played a lead role for NRCS in recovery efforts from the 1997 and 2002 floods in Minnesota.  As a result of those experiences, she was recruited for a team to access damages and suggest solutions to problems caused by flooding in remote areas of Nicaragua after Hurricane Mitch. 

Jacobsen has authored numerous technical releases on the use of loose rock riprap and erosion protection for damns and lakeshores.  She is an emeritus member of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, the organization that prepares and administers the professional engineering exam, and serves as an ABET Volunteer in the evaluation of collegiate engineering programs for compliance with ABET standards.

A 28-year member of ASABE, Jacobsen has served on the Board of Trustees, and provided leadership to various Soil and Water division committees.  She is currently serving as a member of the SW-25 Water Resource Structures groups, ED-414 Engineering Licensure, and SW-05 Publication Review.  She is also past chair of the ED-204 Engineering and Technology Accreditation, and current chair of the Minnesota section of ASABE.   

Awards and honors for Jacobsen include an Outstanding Service award from the AELSLAGID Board for professional engineering licensure, two NRCS Susan B. Anthony awards, Minnesota Erosion Control Association Leadership award, and the U.S. Forest Service Eastern Region award for a multi-agency lakeshore stabilization project.  Jacobsen was one of 238 women engineers across the nation recently recognized in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ book entitled Changing Our World:  True Stories of Women Engineers.

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