“I used to study at the URI library when I was in high school just so I could walk around the campus,” the West Kingston resident said. “My older brother graduated from URI as a mechanical engineering major, which further influenced my decision to attend URI.”

Fairbrother entered URI as an ocean engineering major, but after an internship in 2016 with the Portsmouth Water and Fire District, where she gathered GPS data for a waterworks system and shadowed field operators, she decided to switch to civil and environmental engineering.

“I interned for Bill McGlinn, who was the head of the water and fire district for 29 years,” said the senior. “He inspired me with his passion for the field and taught me the ropes of working for a public water utility. He’s continued to be a mentor who I keep in touch with regularly.”

Over the following two summers, Fairbrother completed internships at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport and the Wright-Pierce environmental engineering firm in Providence.

Because Fairbrother excelled at her internships and in her engineering courses, she was nominated and selected for URI’s Ronald C. Jalbert endowed scholarship in 2018 and 2019. Jalbert, who passed away in 1996, worked as a civil engineer for 31 years, specializing in bridge design and project management.

Fairbrother received the most recent scholarship at the Providence Engineering Society‘s annual banquet, held on Feb. 13 at the Providence Biltmore. The scholarship is for $2,600, the largest amount that has been awarded since the scholarship was created more than 20 years ago.

“I’m very honored to have received this scholarship,” Fairbrother said. “I work at least 20 hours a week while in school, so this scholarship provides some relief from a huge financial burden.”

What makes the memorial scholarship more meaningful to Fairbrother is that the person it is named after was a close colleague of McGlinn.

Fairbrother is currently interning at Tighe & Bond, an engineering and environmental consulting services firm in Providence, where she plans on working full-time this summer.

“My passion definitely lies in the environmental side of civil engineering,” Fairbrother stated. “I hope to design water and wastewater systems some day. I also hope to give back to the memorial scholarship that has had a big impact on my education.”