Growth and Giving Back: Sasha Pavlov’s Journey at Northeastern
Sahsa Pavlov portrait.
Sasha Pavlov, E’26, is a civil engineering student with a minor in architecture. With experience gained through time abroad, co-ops, research, and more, she is excited to make an impact and confident she can succeed wherever she lands.
Sasha Pavlov recently completed her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at Northeastern. Though she had an early passion for the arts—playing piano throughout high school—she gravitated toward physics and math as her studies progressed. Looking for a path that honored both her creative and technical sides, she landed on civil engineering and architecture, subjects that had already captured her attention through her interest in examining buildings and structures even in her artwork.
She first learned about the combined civil engineering and architecture major from a friend at Northeastern and began looking into it more seriously. The opportunity to study abroad was a significant factor in her college decision, and Northeastern’s accessibility of international programs was a strong draw. She enrolled as a combined civil engineering and architecture major but has since shifted architecture to a minor to make room for more technical engineering coursework.
Co-op and Research
Pavlov has completed three co-ops at Northeastern. The first was at TEC Inc., an engineering consulting firm specializing in transportation, highway design, land development, and bridge structures. She rotated through all of these practice areas as a civil engineering intern, gaining a broad view of the field and a clearer sense of the range of careers available to her.
Pavlov at SGH. Courtesy photo.
Her second and third co-ops were both at Simpson, Gumpertz, and Heger Inc. (SGH), a consulting firm focused on new building design, exterior building systems, and investigating structural failures and damage. As a structural engineering intern in the new design division, Pavlov worked on both newly constructed and existing buildings—visiting job sites to evaluate conditions and working through problems on behalf of clients. What she valued most was the opportunity to put classroom knowledge into practice, taking theories and core concepts and applying them to produce real, tangible results. The experience sharpened her career goals and confirmed that this was a field she wanted to return to.
Pavlov is deeply grateful for the mentorship she received through Northeastern’s alumni network during her time at SGH. The assistant principal engineer who hired her—a Northeastern alumnus who passed away last fall—consistently encouraged her to follow her passions and gave her the confidence to do so. He made mentorship a genuine priority, and the impact of his generosity inspired Pavlov to carry that same spirit into her own extracurricular roles. He shaped her career in a fundamental way, and his influence is part of why she looks forward to returning to SGH in the future.
In addition to her co-ops, Pavlov spent over a year as an undergraduate researcher at Northeastern’s STReSS Lab. Her primary work involved contributing to literature reviews for a university report on earthquake-resistant structural systems, building a comprehensive overview of current research in the field. She also helped set up future experiments at the lab’s Burlington facility before departing for co-op. The experience gave her a concrete picture of what a research career might look like and strengthened her lab skills along the way.
Influences and Extracurriculars
Two courses proved particularly formative for Pavlov: Site, Space, and Program and Structural Analysis, which she took in the same year. Taking them side by side helped clarify her direction—as much as she loved design, Structural Analysis awakened her analytical side in a way that drew her more fully toward engineering. Professor Dionisio Bernal’s teaching was a significant part of that. “It feels like he’s learning it all again for the first time with you, and is very passionate about making students understand the ‘why’ behind all of it,” Pavlov says. That passion left a lasting impression and pushed her further toward engineering.
Another influential mentor is University Distinguished Professor and CDM Smith Professor Jerome Hajjar, her principal investigator at the STReSS Lab. Pavlov admires his deep commitment to his work and the impact it makes, and appreciates that despite his many projects and responsibilities, he always makes time to offer life advice or walk through an engineering concept with her. His guidance has been a steady presence throughout her time in the lab.
Beyond co-ops and research, Pavlov is an active member of Northeastern’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The club hosts weekly speakers from prominent industry firms, many of which hire co-ops—a resource Pavlov found especially valuable early on, when she and her peers were still discovering the full range of opportunities available to civil and environmental engineering students. To give back to the community that helped her, she became Vice President for Professional Development, where she oversees the club’s mentoring programs—connecting students with peers and alumni through a managed alumni network. The experience has deepened her appreciation for the Northeastern community. “It’s really special to see how much people want to stay connected,” she says, “and that’s something I want to take with me moving forward.”
Pavlov is also a semifinalist for the Fulbright Scholarship, a highly competitive program supporting teaching, research, and study abroad opportunities around the world.
Lessons Learned and Moving Forward
Pavlov’s advice to incoming students is to get involved broadly in the first two years—explore what the university has to offer—then narrow down and invest deeply in a few things that will have real, lasting impact. She also strongly encourages going abroad as often as possible. “It makes you appreciate Northeastern more, but also makes you grow and learn so much,” she says. “When else are you going to have the chance to spend six months in a different country?”
Pavlov in Scottland. Courtesy photo.
For Pavlov, time away from campus has defined her Northeastern experience as much as time on it. She studied abroad in the spring of her first year through Global Quest, an experience that sparked a desire to keep exploring. She later participated in an architecture-focused Dialogue of Civilizations in Italy, sketching and studying historic Italian buildings—an experience that shaped the kind of work she wanted to pursue in her co-ops and career. In her junior year, she spent an independent semester at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, taking engineering courses and becoming part of the campus community there. Across all of these experiences, a common thread emerged: college, she has learned, is about figuring out what you want and finding the confidence to go after it.
Looking ahead, Pavlov sees two clear paths: win the Fulbright and go abroad or return to SGH and build her career in industry. Either way, she hopes to deepen her technical expertise in working with existing buildings—a passion she discovered during her co-ops. She is motivated by work that leaves a visible mark on the world. “Buildings support everything we do as humans,” she says. And beyond the technical work, she is committed to building connections and showing up for others, so that one day she can be the kind of mentor to someone else that others have been for her.