LT Kelli Knight is an instructor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA). She graduated from USCGA in 2019 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and began her career as a student engineer aboard USCGC BERTHOLF (WMSL 750) in Alameda, CA.

In 2022, LT Knight earned an M.S. in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in Structural Engineering from the University of California Davis.

Following graduate school, she served as the construction branch chief at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Petaluma in Petaluma, CA, where she directed and managed construction of the annual $21M depot-level maintenance program for the 837-acre shore facility.

She returned to USCGA in 2025 as a member of the permanent commissioned teaching staff, where she will be mentoring and teaching future Coast Guard officers. LT Knight is actively pursuing her Doctorate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering with an emphasis on Cement and Concrete Composites and Life Cycle Assessment.

Education

• M.S., Civil Engineering with an emphasis in Structural Engineering, University of California Davis, 2022
• B.S., Civil Engineering, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 2019

Courses Taught

• Mechanics of Materials, Lecture and Lab

Professional Memberships, Certifications, and Licenses

• Engineer-in-Training (EOIT), Connecticut, (2019-present)
• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
• American Concrete Institute (ACI)
• Structural Engineering Institute (SEI)
• Society of American Military Engineers (SAME)

Selected Publications & Presentations

Publications:

• Knight, K. A., Cunningham, P. R., & Miller, S. A. (2023). Optimizing supplementary cementitious material replacement to minimize the environmental impacts of concrete. Cement and Concrete Composites, 139, 105049. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2023.105049 
• Knight, K. A., & Miller, S. A. (2024). Parameters Driving Concrete Carbonation at its End-of-Life for Direct Air Capture in Transportation Projects. https://doi.org/10.7922/G23X850N

Presenter

• “U.S. Coast Guard Station Kings Point, Relocation of STA King’s Point to Fort Totten”, American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Zone 1 Conference, University of Buffalo, 2019