Three Lipscomb alumni join the College of Engineering faculty/staff

Mechanical and civil engineering and the Peugeot Center bring on Lipscomb grads to work with students.

Janel Shoun-Smith and Shelby Bratcher | 615.966.7078  |  01/20/2021

During the 2020-2021 school year, three of Lipscomb University’s own Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering graduates have made their way back home.
 
Daniela Baugh (’16) took on the role of director of operations for the Peugeot Center for Engineering Service to Developing Communities in 2020. Max David Collao (’09) joined the mechanical engineering department as an assistant professor, and Jordan Wilson (LA ’05, ’09) joined the civil and environmental engineering department as an assistant professor, both in spring 2021.
  
Each of these members of the Lipscomb community bring professional experiences that will prove valuable to students.

David Collao: Bringing computational experience straight from the start-up sector

Max David Collao is originally from Lima, Peru, and came to Lipscomb for his undergraduate degree in 2004. He graduated with a mechanical engineering degree.

His big move from Peru to Nashville came due to translating work he had done for Lipscomb missions teams in 2002-2004. Then-faculty member Tom Seals led the mission trips and answered many of Collao’s questions about Lipscomb.

After graduating from Lipscomb with a mechanical engineering degree, economic conditions in the U.S. spurred him to immediately enter graduate school, where he earned his master’s in 2011 and a Ph.D. in 2017, both in computational engineering and both from the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga.

Upon graduating, he found himself working for several years in the start-up sector of the business world. His first job was as a 3D development engineer for Motion View Software, where he created automatic segmentation software to create 3D models of bones and teeth.

Next he became lead aerodynamics engineer for Smart Truck in Greenville, South Carolina, then software and algorithms engineer at Branch Technology, in Chattanooga, and then algorithms and optimizations software developer at Paragon Components Systems in Chattanooga.

Working for young start-up companies did not always provide great job security, he said, but it did provide great opportunities to learn flexibility and practice independent work on projects wholly his own, experiences he can share with entrepreneurial-minded engineering students at Lipscomb.

“I got to see a lot of the positives and negatives of working for start-ups like that,” said Collao. “You need to be flexible and willing to risk job security, but you get to learn a lot because you have to wear so many hats and you have to work independently. You will be the person to figure out the problem and become the expert.”

With his Ph.D. in hand, Collao had always intended to eventually head to academia to teach. This semester he is beginning his teaching journey in a new home city and with a new wife, Gwendolyn Setterberg Collao. This semester he is teaching advanced fluid mechanics, computer applications and mechanical vibrations.

Daniela Baugh: Eight-year veteran of Peugeot Center missions

Daniela Baugh, a civil and environmental engineering graduate has been an active participant in the Peugeot Center’s missions, thus bringing helpful guidance and perspective to Peugeot Center leaders and students active in the center’s mission program. 

Baugh was born in Colombia, South America, but was raised close to Nashville in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Following her graduation from Lipscomb for three years Baugh worked as a consultant in stormwater remodeling for Civil and Environmental Consultants in Franklin, Tennessee. She followed that with a year working in the realm of land development for Kimley Horn in Nashville. 

Baugh has many years of significant mission work in her past, a good fit for Peugeot which coordinates Lipscomb’s humanitarian engineering teams implementing projects internationally.

“My very first mission trip was with Habitat for Humanity in East Tennessee in 2013. Since then, I was primarily involved with engineering missions in Guatemala through the Peugeot Center. I have participated in eight Peugeot Center trips, and through them have had the opportunity to work on surveys, pedestrian bridges, water distribution systems and masonry stoves,” said Baugh. 

Baugh became interested in environmental and civil engineering because she was originally interested in architecture, but knew she wanted to attend Lipscomb. Her mom, an engineer, suggested civil engineering. “It was adjacent to architecture, and I could more easily jump into that field later on if I wanted,” explained Baugh. 

During her time as a student at Lipscomb, learned “that the privilege of education comes with a responsibility to serve others with your skills.” This valuable foundation is what led to her return to Lipscomb as staff. 

As an alumna, she offers a unique perspective to students and can relate to their experiences in missions and the classroom, she said. “We (The Peugeot Center) work directly with engineering students and engineering professionals on a regular basis, and it has been helpful to have been in their shoes in the past. It gives me a clear picture of their needs from the Peugeot Center and how to better serve them.” 

“Working at the Peugeot Center is a dream I have had for a long time. I received a lot of mentorship and guidance during my time as a student at Lipscomb, and I want to be a part of that for future students,” said Baugh. “I hope that the Peugeot Center will be a place where individuals will learn servant leadership, humility and find peace about their role in God's kingdom.”
 

Jordan Wilson: Lipscomb Lifer specializes in water and renewable energy

Jordan Wilson started his schooling at Lipscomb Academy as a Lipscomb Lifer who always liked to tinker with things. His desire to run in collegiate competition and to study engineering led him to Lipscomb University’s engineering mechanics program, not yet its own college at that time in 2005.

Graduating from Lipscomb in 2009 with his degree, he was interested in pursuing clean and renewable energy in either the mechanical or civil fields. Those interests led him to Colorado, where he earned a master’s and Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering, both from Colorado State University.

His studies in civil engineering led him toward wind energy, “But as a master’s student I was introduced to water and working on small drinking water systems. Once you get out west, in arid regions, you start to deal with a lot of water rights issues. Every drop of water is accounted for. That’s something we don’t think much about in Tennessee.”

Since 2016, Wilson worked for CDM Smith in Nashville, but working on water distribution systems, water collection systems and hydraulic modeling for wastewater treatment for municipalities across the nation from Franklin and Knoxville, Tennessee, to Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado. 

He said he enjoys helping small communities with their big water issues.
“Clean water is essential for everyone, so to be able research and investigate those issues and disseminating information to smaller communities was of interest to me. Not everyone has the resources of a big city, but water has broader implications on a global scale,” he said.

Wilson hopes he can introduce Lipscomb’s civil engineering students to the latest data analytics and modeling technology, an important goal as a better educated public is now more aware of water issues, its use and conservation. “Being able to stay on top of the current knowledge trends in your field is very important,” he said.

This semester Wilson is teaching statics, the fundamentals of engineering design and a hydraulics lab.