Corps of Engineers selects St. Paul, Minnesota, resident for national award

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Headquarters selected Leigh Youngblood, Ph.D., St. Paul District employee and St. Paul resident, as its 2025 recipient of the Resilience Role Model Award for her innovation, creativity and collaboration within the infrastructure and installation resilience community.

The national award recognizes a Corps of Engineers employee or team for showing consistent leadership and understanding of weather-related impacts and risks.

Youngblood was selected in part for her work on the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program. She was instrumental in her role as a collaborator to develop a reliable future hydrology data product to support resilient management actions. Youngblood's contributions also include the development of updated technical guidance, co-authorship of a literature review on nonstationary hydrology, data product evaluations, and sharing of her expertise on USACE project evaluation methodology and tools for water resources resilience in the Midwest.

“Dr. Youngblood is an exemplary engineer, and it has been a privilege to work with her since she joined the district in 2020,” said Heather Henneman, St. Paul District hydraulics and hydrology branch chief and Youngblood’s supervisor. “She is an excellent communicator and a natural leader who has a record of coming up with and executing innovative solutions.”

Youngblood has worked on a variety of studies and risk assessments since joining the Corps of Engineers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in civil and biosystems engineering from, Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri, in civil engineering. She is a licensed professional engineer in Minnesota.

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