Evelyn Villanueva, a research geologist in the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, has been named among the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ HENAAC award winners.

The HENAAC, or the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference, aims to identify the contributions of outstanding Hispanic Americans in the fields of science, engineering, technology and math.

Villanueva is principal investigator of the Breaching Mechanics for Embankment Dams under the Dam Risk Focus Area and the principal investigator of the Gravel Study of the Lower Mississippi River. She was part of the Hurricane Katrina initial field team for the Interagency Performance Evaluation Team, in which she was given the Department of the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service.

Villanueva has a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and a master’s in geosciences from Mississippi State University.

She and her husband, Guillermo Riveros, who works at ERDC’s Information Technology Laboratory, have two children.