August 30, 2021

We are pleased to welcome Mateo Downey, our new Design Engineer, to Epstein’s Civil Engineering department! This is Mateo’s first job out of college, though his past experience includes serving as a design engineering intern for the City of Santa Ana (California) Public Works department. In his role there, Mateo was involved with street improvements, bulb-outs, and wheelchair ramps, among others.

Mateo really enjoyed math class as a kid, and his favorite show was Bob the Builder, so he naturally found his way to civil engineering. He has always been fascinated with the work required to build any type of structure, and knew he wanted to be a part of that process. Mateo’s dad also has a civil engineering degree.

Mateo attended college at California State University of Fullerton and recently graduated with a degree in civil engineering. While attending school, he performed research with a professor in environmental engineering. Mateo was able to conduct his own experiment to see whether an herbicide played a role in the declining population of a certain seagrass in Morro Bay, California and present his findings at a conference for undergraduate students. Most of his extracurricular activities were unfortunately put on hold during the second half of his junior year because of COVID-19.

Mateo grew up in Redlands, California and attended Redlands East Valley High School. He has spent the majority of his life in Southern California, but has also lived in Arizona and Oregon for a little while. His favorite place that he has lived thus far is Orange County while attending college. Mateo lived really close to the beach and appreciated the year-round lovely weather (it was always hot in Redlands where he grew up).

In his free time, and back in California, Mateo loved going to the beach and trying all the water activities, including surfing, boogie boarding and swimming. He will have to get used to Lake Michigan now! He also enjoys hiking, reading and streaming movies and TV shows. Also good to know: His favorite drink is a green tea matcha latte from Starbucks.

Additionally, Mateo came to Chicago with his girlfriend who is attending Northwestern University to get her PhD in physics. Their road trip lasted around 34 hours (5 days) and took them through 7 states! Both of them are pumped to start their lives here and are looking forward to becoming more acquainted with the city.

One more item of note: Mateo is not ready for Chicago winters and has conceded to the fact that he will have to buy real winter clothes, which majorly differ from Southern California winter clothing.

Welcome to Epstein (and Chicago), Mateo! We’re delighted to have you join us.