Mirela D. Tumbeva is currently a Project Engineer at Thornton Tomasetti, where she specializes in design-build projects, quantity growth evaluations, and forensic failure investigations. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, where her research focused on modular steel nodal connectors for the rapid construction of resilient steel bridges and grid shells. She earned her Master’s degree from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Geodesy (Sofia, Bulgaria).