May 6, 2020

We are pleased to welcome our new Senior Design Engineer, Giovana Zavaglia, to Epstein's Electrical Engineering department!

Before joining Epstein, Giovana was at McGuire Engineers for four years. She started there as an intern working part-time while in school full-time. She subsequently joined as a full-time member of their electrical engineering team after graduating. While there, Giovana worked on commercial-type projects as well as some educational ones. She is very proud to say that she worked in the base build-out of the old Post Office in Chicago, and also did some of the tenants spaces that moved in there. "It was great to have the opportunity to see how that gigantic building evolved."

Giovana attended the Illinois Institute of Technology (go Scarlet Hawks!), where she got her B.S. in electrical engineering. While in school, she played volleyball for a few semesters and was also part of the IIT Motorsports team, where they developed an electric race car to compete in the Formula SAE.

Having grown up in a small city in Argentina called Casilda, Giovana moved to Chicago in 2012 to go to school. She went to an Italian high school, Michelangelo Buonarroti, since her family is all Italian. Side note: she speaks Spanish and some Italian (she forgot a little of the Italian after all these years).

Outside of work, Giovana mostly hangs out with her wife and their dog, Rocky, and cat, Toby. They love taking Rocky to the dog park on the weekends! In addition to that, Gio enjoys doing crossword puzzles. She didn't want to brag, but she did share that she has won a couple of contests... She also likes coding, and recently took a course to learn how to code in different languages such as Ruby and JavaScript. "I like to work on little apps and programs when I have nothing else to do - or when Im all caught up with my Netflix shows."

Gio joined this industry because she was amazed at what goes on behind the scenes that leads to a building being made. She loves pointing a building she worked on, and being able to say she made that possible. "Even though it's engineering, I also love that theres a certain aspect of artistry that we put into our work and have our way of doing things. When I design a power distribution, for instance, I feel like, although theres the obvious technical aspect, theres also a sense of art in what we do."

So what should her Epstein family know about her? Gio is 100 percent a team player and would love to help anyone in whatever way she can. "I also love to learn new things and Im super excited to be joining the family!"

Some other fun facts: she lives in Portage Park with her wife; they got married about a year ago; before transferring to IIT, Gio got her associates degree from Wilbur Wright College and worked as a math tutor; in addition to working as a math tutor, she worked as a dog walker for four years; huge dog person!

Once again, welcome, Gio! We're delighted to have you join us.

Editor's Note: Gio told me after the fact, as a "side note," that she also boxes and fought (and won) in the 2018 Real Estate Rumble. You are officially too impressive!