Christi Branscom, Deputy to the Mayor and Chief Operating Officer for the City of Knoxville, was part of a nationwide panel that recently assessed exemplary engineering achievements in the American Council of Engineering Companies' 49th annual Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) competition.

Branscom joined a panel of more than 31 engineers, architects and other built environment professionals, as well as representatives from government, media and academia. The panelists ranked 170 projects from throughout the world that entered in the 2015 EEA program.

Branscom oversees many of Knoxville's largest City departments and operations, including Engineering, Purchasing, Building Inspections, Public Service, Parks and Recreation, Information Systems, management of major public venues and Knoxville Area Transit services. She's also an attorney with extensive private sector experience as a real estate developer and owner of a construction business, and she was honored last year with the University of Tennessee's Accomplished Alumni Award.

All EEA award winners will be honored as 2015 engineering triumphs at the Engineering Excellence Awards Gala - known as the "Academy Awards of the engineering industry" - on Tuesday, April 21, in Washington, D.C.

Judging took place in February, and criteria included uniqueness, originality, technical innovation, social and economic value, complexity, and success in enhancing the practice of engineering.

Top winners - 16 Honor Awards, eight Grand Awards - will be announced in March. The prestigious "Grand Conceptor Award" for the year's most outstanding overall engineering achievement will be revealed on the night of the Gala.

The American Council of Engineering Companies is the business association of America's engineering industry, representing more than 5,000 independent engineering firms and more than 500,000 U.S. professionals.