Staying Grounded

A smooth flight begins long before a plane’s wheels leave the runway. Olivia Guo (MPM '23) focuses on making that pre-flight experience as seamless as possible. 

Olivia is a multimodal engineer at Atlas Technical Consultants, a company focused on improving sustainable infrastructure and ensuring safe environments. Her job leans heavily toward aviation landside planning and operations, including for major public agency aviation clients.  

In the aviation world, landside operations address everything beyond an airport’s runways, taxiways, and aircraft operations. That leaves curbside drop-off and pick-up, terminal entry, ground transportation systems, and parking in Olivia’s purview. 

“What ties all of this together is the ability to move between data, field conditions, and technical analysis—and translate that into findings that are useful to project teams and clients,” Olivia said. “That intersection of operations, analytics, and engineering is what I enjoy most about my work.”  

Olivia joined Atlas in 2023 after graduating from Northwestern Engineering's Master of Science in Project Management (MPM) program. Her current focus is aviation planning and design, an area that includes many of the touchpoints that lead to passenger satisfaction, including:  

• Road designs surrounding an airport  

• Parking and shuttle services  

• Passenger drop-off and pick-up areas 

It's the variety of work that keeps Olivia excited and challenged. 

“One project may focus on airport passenger demand or landside circulation, while another may involve field observations, speed studies, operational reporting, or transportation system analysis,” she said. “Over time, working across these different assignments gives me a stronger understanding of how transportation systems function in the real world.” 

Handling such a massive and important scope of work could be daunting, but Olivia said her MPM education prepared her for the challenge.  

Olivia chose the MPM program because it went beyond lecture-based learning and promoted teamwork, communication, and real-world problem solving.  

“That format felt very practical and closely connected to the type of work I wanted to do after graduation,” she said. “The project-based coursework helped me practice how to define problems, organize tasks, work with teammates, present ideas clearly, and connect technical analysis to broader project goals.” 

Olivia now applies what she learned in the MPM program daily at Atlas.  

“The MPM program helped me become more comfortable thinking beyond a single task,” she said. “It helped me understand how my work fits into the larger project lifecycle, from planning and design to operations, reporting, field work, and client decision-making.” 

Olivia took on an additional role at Atlas earlier this year when she was named to the company’s CEO Advisory Group, an internal volunteer team that collects feedback, ideas, and suggestions from employees across its various offices.  

The team then meets in small groups with people from different regions to discuss the ideas and determine which should be implemented.  

“The goal is to help share employee perspectives and contribute to a better company environment,” Olivia said. “For me, it has also been a good opportunity to understand the company beyond my own project work and to hear perspectives from colleagues in different offices and regions.” 

In that role, she again finds herself turning to her MPM experience. She credits her time in the program with helping her do her job effectively, allowing her to make travelers' lives smoother, easier, and safer. 

"Many classes are taught in a way that connects directly to real project delivery," she said. "The flexibility, cross-disciplinary access, and hands-on learning is what I think sets the MPM program apart."