Class of 2025: From Peru to project engineer, Catherine Caputo builds her future
Name: Catherine Caputo
College: College of Engineering
Major: Construction engineering and management
Hometown: Round Hill, Virginia
Plans after graduation: Earning a master’s degree in the Vecellio Construction Engineering and Management Program, after which she’ll take a full-time job as a project engineer with Southland Industries in Dulles, Virginia
Favorite Hokie memory: Earning second place as part of Virginia Tech’s design-build team at the Associated Schools of Construction competition in Dublin, Ireland, in November 2024. Her team had 16 hours to design, cost, and schedule a project based on provided specifications and budget. “You're sitting in a room for 12 to 16 hours straight with your team," she said, "but you learn so much in those competitions, and I got to hang out with some of my best friends in another country.”
Catherine Caputo’s epiphany about her future in happened in the jungles of Peru.
On a mission trip the summer before her freshman year at Virginia Tech, Caputo was helping to build a malaria clinic in a small Peruvian village when she realized that construction combined all her loves: critical thinking, math, design, architecture, and engineering. “I wanted to have the tangible satisfaction of seeing something come from nothing right before me,” she said.
As the outstanding senior in construction engineering and management (CEM), part of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction, she has no doubt she made the right choice. “CEM has probably been one of the biggest blessings of my life,” she said. “It’s the perfect major for me, has given me lifelong friends, and has prepared me for such a great industry.”
That's the message she shares with prospective students and their parents as a CEM ambassador. “I love being able to share that honest joy with people,” she said.
Real-world learning in every class
Contrary to popular belief, CEM isn’t just about swinging hammers. Learning how to design and manage a building project has been baked into most of Caputo’s coursework. “It forces you to think through the construction process, where you have to bid a project, create a schedule, and know the cost. We see the full picture, we use the actual bid documents they use in the industry — and we have to submit it on time, just like they would.”
Many of her professors — including Charles Smith, an assistant professor of practice for whom she’s been a teaching assistant — have long industry experience and introduce real-world scenarios to the classroom.
Others, like Assistant Professor Ashtarout Ammar, have invited her to help with research. With financial support from the school, Caputo ended up presenting the paper she wrote on construction robotics at the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, in Lille, France, in summer 2024.
While touring castles and hobnobbing with students and faculty from universities around the world may not be the typical undergrad experience, Caputo's grateful for the unwavering support she received from professors like Ammar. “Faculty investing in me, encouraging me, giving me advice and direction, and trusting me with opportunities like research has been huge in preparing me for my future,” Caputo said.
Industry experience and Hokie connections
Among the multiple industry internships Caputo has held at E.E. Reed and Southland Industries, she got hands-on experience leading daily huddles at a data center construction site.
“All of the foremen were a little rough around the edges,” Caputo said. “At the beginning of the summer it was super intimidating. But by the end of the summer, I would confidently walk in, set up my computer, put the Teams call on, and be like, ‘Hey, guys, what's the status on this?’”
She was just as forthright with the alumni that she met at Myers-Lawson career fairs. When some said, “Text me if you need anything,” she took them at their word. In the lead-up to the Associated Schools of Construction Design-Build Competition in Dallas, in February 2025, she invited the alums to coach her team and offer advice. “There's so many alumni that want to mentor you,” Caputo said. “With the alumni that Virginia Tech has, everywhere you go, there’s a Hokie in construction.”
The design-build team ultimately placed first.
Impact in Peru and beyond
Outside CEM, Caputo stayed busy, playing intramural soccer, serving at Blacksburg Christian Fellowship, and leading Bible studies for Baptist Collegiate Ministries, which she described as “a huge rock for me during college.”
Even with all those commitments, Caputo stood out in the classroom, earning herself the prestigious National Academy of Construction Scholarship and the Associated General Contractors of America Scholarship. That track record continues. As she prepares to start a master’s program in construction engineering and management through Virginia Tech's Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, she's already been selected for the department's prestigious Via Scholarship and Vecellio Scholarship.
Caputo imagines herself one day building something grand, like a stadium. But she also envisions continuing to work on construction projects in countries that need her skills. In summer 2025, she returned to Peru for the fifth time, this time on a service-learning trip with a CEM class to build adobe masonry signs. “I think Peru will always have a special place in my heart," she said.
