Distinguished New Engineer

Laura Traczynski is a project manager at Turner Construction Company’s Interiors and Special Projects Division. After completing a summer internship with the company, she joined Turner full time as a field engineer in 2020 and was promoted to assistant engineer in early 2021, serving as the project engineer for two complex lab/vivarium projects. In that role, Traczynski managed engineering processes and communications with the design team and led project meetings around change management. As a result, she was named “Rookie of the Year” by Turner Pittsburgh.

In early 2022, Traczynski was promoted to project manager and is now responsible for overseeing project budgets, schedules, subcontractor coordination, and team members for multimillion-dollar projects. For example, Traczynski was tasked with renovating four K–12 classrooms into cutting-edge learning spaces for robotics and coding classes. In addition to project management, Traczynski led her team to find a less expensive and less invasive route for the mechanical exhaust air design, resulting in significant savings and fewer safety risks. At completion, the client praised its experience with Turner as one of the most efficiently run construction management processes it had ever witnessed.

Traczynski is currently working on a hospital project, for which her team is upgrading an air-handling unit for active operating rooms. She and her team developed an operations sequence that only requires the operating rooms to be shut down for two days while switching between the old and new units, avoiding the need to reschedule surgeries.

Traczynski became a member of the Society of Women Engineers as a first-year student at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016, taking on a number of leadership roles that included public relations chair (FY17), treasurer (FY18), and president (FY19). Traczynski has served as the university’s SWE counselor since FY21.

Traczynski joined the SWE Pittsburgh Collegiate Section in 2020. She served as the collegiate section liaison in FY21 and FY22 and was vice president of programming for FY23. Traczynski participated in the SWE Future Leaders Program in FY20. During FY21, she was a SWENext clubs reporter on the SWENext programs committee. She served as a leadership coach for six sections in FY22 and for 13 sections in FY23.

She is active in Pittsburgh’s construction community, including with BRIDGE, an employee resource group at Turner, for which she takes part in canned food, pet food, and winter clothing drives. She also created a “Toolbox Talk” about mental health and depression and is part of the BRIDGE social committee, which plans networking events.

In 2022, Traczynski joined the ACE (architecture, construction, engineering) Mentor Program, through which she advises high school students interested in ACE careers. She is also a member of Pittsburgh’s Master Builders’ Association of Western Pennsylvania and serves on its young constructors committee.

Traczynski earned a B.S. in civil engineering with a minor in economics at the University of Pittsburgh in 2019. In her spare time, she volunteers at a cat lounge, skis, and enjoys musical theater.