Senior Spotlight: Julia Heywood Bridges Gaps

This piece is part of our Senior Stories series, in which we highlight GU students throughout the year.

Name: Julia Heywood
Major: Civil Engineering
Hometown: Bellingham, WA

Julia Heywood (’25) isn’t an artist — at least, not a self-proclaimed one. Despite this, her mural design was selected by a six-member jury panel to be painted in the Bollier Center’s High Bay Lab — a two-story, large-scale testing zone for Gonzaga’s civil engineering students.

Artist or not, Heywood does readily admit to being Gonzaga-obsessed. She experienced campus for the first time while visiting her older brother, who is now a Zag alum. It wasn’t long before she decided to enroll as a civil engineering major, excited to embark on her own journey at a university she already loved.

Civil engineering is a perfect mix of Heywood's interests: math, the environment, and transportation, just to name a few. Even though artistic expression was the last thing on her mind when she chose this area of study, Heywood was excited to highlight key features of Gonzaga and the Inland Northwest with her mural design.

“I thought it would be fun, even though I don’t really do art as a hobby very frequently,” Heywood says. “It was a chance to combine civil engineering, Gonzaga, and Spokane, which are three things I love.”

Heywood learned as she went, using a drawing program on her iPad to visually represent different Spokane landmarks, symbols of Gonzaga’s Jesuit mission, and all six subdisciplines of civil engineering. Some of Heywood’s inclusions, like College Hall and the Spokane River, are well-known staples; others, such as Mt. Spokane’s topography lines, are more subtle.

“It was a lot easier to do it digitally because I could make changes whereas, if I did it by hand, I would have to redraw entire sections,” Heywood explains. “I spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas and making connections between different elements so that I was left with a comprehensive end product.”

On Wednesday nights, Professor Jennifer Seo’s students paint the mural as part of the VART 324 and VART 421 courses. There will be an unveiling ceremony near the end of the Spring 2026 semester, celebrating Heywood’s work and the Civil Engineering Department as a whole.

“I never expected that they would pick my design,” Heywood admits. “I may not view myself as an artist, but I’m glad I was able to honor Gonzaga's Jesuit values, location, and engineering education in this way.”

After graduation, Heywood plans to work for the Washington State Department of Transportation as a transportation engineer. Moving back to the greater Bellingham area, she will assist with projects across the northwest region of the state. When asked how Gonzaga has prepared her for the future, Heywood’s response was simple: “How has it not?”

“I've changed exponentially since my first day at Gonzaga,” Heywood says. “I feel well prepared to go into my career, but, most importantly, I’ve become a whole person with developed beliefs, confidence, and really strong personal connections.”