News Archives - The Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Irvine

Geoffrey Vander Veen, a third-year civil engineering major and ITS-Irvine student intern, is making inspiring contributions both in transportation research and through his philanthropic work with Engineers Without Borders (EWB). We are proud to highlight Geoffrey and the impact he is making!

Geoffrey first became involved with ITS-Irvine during his freshman year when his interest in transportation engineering and research led him to reach out to ITS faculty member Dr. Michael Hyland. Seeking to learn more about the field, he connected with Dr. Hyland, who offered him a position in his research lab, one that he has held ever since.

Since then, Geoffrey has continued to expand his research experience, including his participation in the ITS-Irvine Transportation Research Immersion Program (TRIP) this past summer. His research interests surround the planning and modeling side of transportation engineering, representing the intersection of math, computer science, and civil engineering. “I feel like the intersection of all those is a really interesting problem space where you just get to work on cool things and see what your computer outputs.”

Beyond transportation research, Geoffrey has played a pivotal role in reviving Engineers Without Borders at UCI, a student-led organization that uses engineering skills for humanitarian efforts. The club had become inactive during the pandemic, but Geoffrey and a group of friends saw an opportunity to bring it back to life.

Starting as secretary and now serving as co-president, Geoffrey has helped transform the organization from nonexistent to a thriving club. Since its revival, they have built or contributed to the construction of four houses in Mexico, partnered with Engineers Without Borders Orange County to implement a water filtration system in Ecuador, and begun working on a stormwater management project for an affordable housing development in Dallas, Texas.

EWB’s most recent project took Geoffrey and his team to Tijuana, Mexico, where they partnered with Corazón, a nonprofit community development organization, to build homes for families in need. These projects give students hands-on experience in construction while making an immediate impact in underserved communities. Explaining the process, Geoffrey describes how students work together to construct homes from the foundation to near completion in just one day:

“We meet up somewhere in San Diego and then take a bus across the border, and then we’ll spend the day learning construction skills, painting, cutting boards, nailing together the structure of the house, putting a roof together, building trusses for that. And then, usually by the end of the day, you have at least a pretty much functional small house. Which is pretty cool—like in one day you can go from just having a cement foundation to having a full house that’s ready for plumbing hookups and electrical hookups.”

For Geoffrey, the experience is about more than just building—it’s about connecting with communities and witnessing the real impact of his work.

“It is a really cool experience because you get to see a world and a culture that is very, very different from California, despite being less than 2 hours away. It’s a really rewarding and really enriching experience just to both go out and build something, which is satisfying in its own way, but also to build it for someone who genuinely needs it and will use it to its fullest capability.”

To read more about EWB’s most recent project in Tijuana, check out this article from UC Irvine News.

While research with ITS-Irvine and Engineers Without Borders may seem distinct, Geoffrey explains how his two passions complement each other. His work in transportation modeling aligns with the problem-solving approach he applies to EWB’s infrastructure projects.

“I think part of me really likes the idea of just kind of playing around with the future and building something cool in my brain and seeing how well it actually works. Which is a lot similar to a lot of what we do at EWB—like building water infrastructure usually or some sort of infrastructure for people in need. And then, seeing how well it works, and doing a lot of back and forth with people who actually live there and see what they want, what they need, and what they can maintain.”

As he looks ahead, Geoffrey is interested in pursuing a career in transportation engineering, with aspirations to work for a major railroad company like BNSF or Union Pacific or for a metropolitan planning organization like the Southern California Association of Governments. He also hopes to return to UCI to pursue a graduate program in the future.

His experiences with ITS and EWB have provided him with a strong foundation to tackle real-world engineering challenges. Reflecting on what he has learned, Geoffrey highlights both the technical skills and leadership experience he has gained.

“Definitely for starters, the hard skills of learning engineering projects, learning how to use a saw and a hammer—sort of like just knowing how to build things with my hands as well as build things with my brain. So like, Engineers Without Borders covers a lot of the hands-on, and the TRIP program covered a lot of how to conceptualize a problem, break it down, and then attack it from different angles.”

Beyond technical skills, Geoffrey has also developed leadership and project management abilities, learning how to organize teams and ensure that projects are completed successfully.

“Through TRIP, I was able to learn a lot about how I work and how to establish a good workflow for myself. And then Engineers Without Borders—I’ve also learned how to establish a good workflow with everyone, from a management or leadership position, such as how to get my team to do what we need to do to accomplish the things that we’ve set out to.”

Diverse and unique experiences, such as transportation modeling research and building homes for others from the ground up, cultivate the well-rounded skills essential for impactful changemakers. With the strong research foundation instilled by ITS-Irvine, combined with the real-world, hands-on experience gained through Engineers Without Borders, we are confident that this rising transportation engineer will achieve great things.

We can’t wait to see all that you continue to accomplish, Geoffrey!

Dr. Sarah L. Catz was recently featured in WalletHub’s article How Much Does Insurance Go Up After an Accident? In the piece, she shares her expertise on transportation policy and insurance trends, providing insights into how accidents impact insurance premiums.

Read the full article here: WalletHub.

Professor and Executive Vice Chair, Emergency Medicine
School of Medicine

How did you become interested in transportation?

My father was an auto mechanic; my mom was a nurse. I grew up in and around cars and healthcare. Although I love vehicles and how they work, I pursued medicine. Specifically, motor vehicle and traffic safety research.

I completed my emergency medicine residency here at UC Irvine and also completed a Medical Fellowship at the U.S. DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, DC. As a young emergency medicine faculty member at UCI, I cared for a lot of trauma injured patients from motor vehicles, cycling, and motorcycle crashes. As a result, I was driven to go beyond the doors of the emergency department and into communities to see what I could do to help prevent serious injuries.

My earliest transportation and traffic safety work started with examining the needs of child passenger/occupant safety among Latino children and their families that would end up in our emergency department. This led to broader work in collaborative relationships in Latino communities focused on prevention education here in Southern California. The community based approach and bilingual nature of working to enhance health literacy in traffic safety and injury prevention changed my whole career.

What drew you to UCI or ITS Irvine?

I was here at UC Irvine as a faculty member in the School of Medicine for about 13 years. In that time, my research focused on motor vehicle occupant protection, teen driver behavior, health disparities, and crash-injury epidemiology. In each of these areas, I worked with the Latino community at large.

I was recruited away in 2009 to the Yale School of Medicine and I continued my research in the Northeast. In mid-2022, I was recruited back to UCI and on my arrival, I immediately wanted to make a connection with the prestigious ITS-Irvine. Thankfully the leadership was interested in learning more about my transportation and traffic safety work. I felt like there was an immediate spark. I was asked to speak at their research symposium and help with their very first Transportation Safety Colloquium which was a great success.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

I would say to take a dive deep into really understanding the scope of transportation and what transportation science offers across the spectrum. Get an understanding of the breadth of transportation science. Transportation is in the foreground, middle ground, and background of our lives; it’s central to living.

What are your research interests and what types of your projects are you currently working on?

The majority of my work over time has been in motor vehicle crash injury epidemiology with more specific sub-areas of investigation including crash injury prevention, young driver behavior, impaired driving, and related health disparities. I have been conducting research and program work in these areas for nearly 25 years.

What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far?

I would say that this would be some of the more recent NIH funded work that my colleagues and I have been examining, including understanding the teen delay in driving licensure phenomena and how this might impact youth and what that could mean for later health, education and employment.

Other notable work deals with what we call RWI and DWI, that is, riding with impaired drivers and driving while impaired. We’ve all heard a lot about DWI prevention programs for teens and those focused on reducing underage drinking, and those are all incredibly important, but there’s less known about this RWI.

We’ve conducted some large national mixed methods work, looking at trajectories of high school teens when and if they do or do not engage in RWI and DWI, and what that means for their choice in health behaviors as they move forward in life.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?

Having practiced emergency medicine for 30 years and taking care of thousands of people that have been in motor vehicle crashes, my mind is always thinking about how we bolster and more deeply integrate injury prevention into day-to-day clinical care, even in the emergency department. I’m also always thinking about how we can move the research that has already been done more effectively into the light of translation for prevention activities and programs so that our communities can reap tangible benefits. I also fully realize that there is just so much complexity here but trying to disentangle some of these issues is what intrigues me most about transportation and traffic safety.

Also, the traffic safety world owes so much to vehicle safety engineering. However, the engineering piece is far from done and I believe there is much prevention gain to be had as we continue to merge safety engineering and health behavior together in the traffic safety space. There is a lot of room for innovation here.

Is there someone or something that inspired you to do your work?

My inspiration first came from my parents. My mom was a nurse and had a passion for the well-being of all of her patients and for closely working with physicians to deliver high quality care. My dad taught me so many things about vehicle upkeep and safety. What inspired me beyond that, was my clinical practice in emergency medicine and taking care of my patients.

What is a fun fact about you?

Before high school, I also got into roller speed skating. It was quite competitive. I actually got quite good and competed in the regional championships and won. That was a long time ago.

What is your superpower?

Given the trajectory of my own career and my experiences along the way, I might say that my superpower is effectively mentoring students, young physicians in training, and young faculty. I truly enjoy engaging with students and young faculty and discussing their career development and future plans.

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? And what interests you most right now?

I became interested in transportation while studying Applied Mathematics at UC Davis, seeing it as a way to apply mathematical models to real-world problems. Currently, I’m most interested in developing innovative approaches to collect and analyze large-scale traffic data while prioritizing privacy.

What drew you to UCI/ITS-Irvine? What do you like best/find as strengths at UCI/ITS-Irvine?

I was drawn to UCI for its world-class transportation program and the Institute of Transportation Studies’ comprehensive approach. What I appreciate most is the academic freedom at UCI. This allows me to explore diverse research interests, from technical aspects to economic and social dimensions of transportation.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

Approach your field with a holistic perspective. In transportation, consider multiple angles – technical aspects, economic impacts, and social implications. Understanding how these interconnect can lead to more innovative solutions and a fulfilling career.

What are your research interests?

My research interests focus on developing innovative methods for collecting and analyzing large-scale traffic data while maintaining privacy, creating mathematical models for safe and human-like automated driving, and investigating the intersections of engineering, economics, and social aspects of transportation.

What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far?

My most significant research accomplishment is developing the Generalized Bathtub Model, inspired by William Vickrey’s work. This model offers a novel approach to analyzing large-scale traffic patterns by focusing on macro-level inflow and outflow of traffic.

What are your other plans for future research?

My future research plans aim to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of transportation systems, leading to technically sound, economically viable, and socially beneficial solutions.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?

Three critical issues in transportation keep me up at night:

Privacy: Balancing the benefits of data-driven transportation improvements with the need to protect individual privacy.
Equity: Ensuring that new transportation technologies (like high occupancy toll lanes) don’t exacerbate existing inequalities.
Safety: Addressing new safety challenges introduced by automated vehicles and shared mobility options.

Is there someone or something that has inspired you?

A significant inspiration for my work has been the late Professor William Vickrey from Columbia University. His first principles-based approach to understanding urban traffic flow, particularly his work on traffic patterns in Midtown Manhattan, aligns closely with my research philosophy of seeking novel approaches to longstanding challenges in transportation.

What are you watching right now?

I enjoy a diverse range of content on YouTube. This variety often leads to unexpected connections and ideas that enrich my approach to transportation research, reflecting the complex, multifaceted nature of modern transportation challenges.

What are you reading right now?

I’m currently reading ‘Development as Freedom’ by Amartya Sen. Sen’s approach to development economics, emphasizing the importance of individual freedoms and capabilities, offers interesting parallels to transportation planning and policy. His ideas about how various factors interconnect to affect human welfare resonate with my view of transportation as a complex system influencing many aspects of life.

What is a fun fact about you?

I train both hands for badminton, allowing me to adapt my game to different opponents. I use my advanced right hand against skilled players and my beginner left hand against less experienced ones.

What is something about you that most people don’t know?

Most people don’t know that I’m practicing Tai Chi while simultaneously developing a mathematical model for it. This endeavor exemplifies my belief in holistic approaches, which I apply to both personal life and transportation research. It challenges me to think across disciplines, combining physics, biomechanics, and traditional Chinese philosophy with advanced mathematics.

What is your superpower?

My superpower is creating mathematical models that capture the essence of diverse, complex systems. This modeling superpower has led to significant contributions like the Generalized Bathtub Model for urban traffic flow. It allows me to bridge abstract mathematics and real-world applications, contributing to innovative solutions across various domains, from transportation to personal wellness practices like Tai Chi.

Professor (Joint Appointment) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Samueli School of Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? What interests you most right now?

I am a computer engineer by training. Since 2009, I have been concentrating on cyber physical systems. In cyber physical systems, more software and embedded computers are becoming integrated into the transportation system or becoming “smart”. With that, the intersections and control systems are becoming more software centric.

I became more interested in transportation as an application. Specifically, I was fascinated with the integration of technology – new vulnerabilities, policies and opportunities; the transportation challenges, how technology is helping, how technology can create challenges. Right now, I am working on the security aspects of transportation.

What are ITS-Irvine’s strengths?

I came to UCI in 2012. Although I am from the electrical engineering department, I found it’s an inter-disciplinary research area. We have ideas that are similar, maybe we speak different languages, but eventually the problems we are trying to solve are solved together.

ITS-Irvine’s strength is its multidisciplinary nature. The people in ITS have interesting perspectives and have different expertise. Many faculty come from different backgrounds. I think that’s ITS’ biggest strength.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

I strongly believe that students should concentrate on their foundation. As an undergraduate or graduate student, having a strong foundation is very important. Be aware of new technologies, but not at the cost of foundational knowledge.

What are your research interests and what types of projects are you currently working on?

My research interests are new technologies into transportation systems. Hardware, sensors like LiDAR, camera, or other technologies that are getting integrated and how these things can help into the safety and security of the transportation system.

As an example, I am currently working on a road intersection security project – increasing the safety of intersections. There are new machine learning and AI algorithms people are trying to integrate with intersections for identification. These technologies are also making intersections vulnerable to the outside world. I’m looking very carefully at these new technologies and the integration of these technologies into the transportation system for bringing human safety to the intersection and transportation system.

What are your plans for future research?

I plan to continue working on the intersection of machine learning, security sensors, and transportation safety.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?

The security aspect of transportation keeps me up at night. On one hand, I’m excited that new technologies are getting into the transportation systems, but I’m scared that if we don’t integrate these technologies in a meaningful and understandable way, because this is a critical infrastructure, it could be detrimental.

Transportation isn’t something that, if it’s not working, can be changed overnight.

We have to make sure that safety is the first priority in every technology integration. I am also concerned that if any entity wants to find a critical infrastructure vulnerability and wants to harm the nation or can create economic, social and many other serious consequences. Safety and security of critical infrastructure like transportation are of utmost importance.

What is your superpower?

Determination. If I want to achieve something, I’ll do it. No matter how hard it is, I’ll figure it out.

When I met Benjamin as a first-year civil engineering advisee, he impressed me immediately. He’s an outstanding student with a strong motivation to specialize in transportation engineering. He volunteered in my group by contributing to a California Air Resources Board project on freight locomotive and rail car identification, as part of California’s transition to zero emission technologies. This experience stimulated his interest in decarbonization of rail freight transportation and estimated the benefit to disadvantaged communities, which he is pursuing in the TRIP program. Benjamin has been a terrific team player and asset to our research.

– Dr. Stephen Ritchie, Director, ITS-Irvine

How did you hear about this summer research program?

I was referred to the program by my advisor, Professor Stephen Ritchie.

What interested you most about it?

I saw that this was an exciting opportunity to conduct and present research. I could also continue the research into the fall.

What are your career goals?

When I complete my degree in Civil Engineering, I hope to work in transportation planning. Specifically, in the rail, freight, or public transportation sectors.

Why are these kinds of summer research programs helpful to students like you?

These research programs allow first and second year students, who might not have taken major-specific classes or decided what they want to do, an opportunity to figure out what they’re interested in. In addition, these programs allow students to make connections with graduate students and faculty, who are interested in mentoring.

What intrigues you about research?

For me, research is so much more rewarding than simply taking classes. You learn hands on and often at your own pace. You can really delve into what you’re passionate about. When you run into obstacles with research and you overcome them, the lessons stick with you longer.

What intrigues you about transportation?

I am particularly intrigued by the many emerging technologies in the field, like more fuel-efficient, zero-emission, automated cars and trains.

What do you like most about the project on which you are working?

This project gives me a chance to work with software that I have never used before, like ArcGIS/Python. I was able to use it in real-world applications, which makes me feel like I’m learning something very relevant very fast.

What do you hope to learn and/or discover as part of this project?

My goal is to learn more about the freight industry in the US (and beyond), and in particular how it can and will adapt to environmental policy.

We are pleased to announce that Professor Federico Vaca, Professor and Executive Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine and Faculty Associate of ITS Irvine, has been featured in WalletHub’s recent publication, “Best & Worst States for Teen Drivers.” This expert insight contributed to this comprehensive analysis, which evaluates the safest and most challenging states for young drivers across the United States.

You can read the full article and see their contributions here.

Assistant Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? And what interests you most right now?

In short, what first interested me in transportation was my frustration with untimed traffic signals and congestion on the Interstate highway as a child.

I am from a suburb a few miles east of the City of Pittsburgh. Congestion in Pittsburgh is not terrible, but the city has several tunnels on the Interstate that are huge bottlenecks despite having the same number of lanes as the non-tunnel portions of the highway. I wanted to understand why these tunnels cause congestion and how to fix it.

Right now, I am interested in recent, emerging, and future innovations in the transportation space. I am particularly interested in driverless vehicles and shared mobility services, including ride-hailing, ride-pooling, robo-taxis, and shared micromobility (i.e., shared bikes and scooters).

My research focuses on improving the design and operational efficiency of these shared mobility services and understanding their potential impacts on travelers and society.

What drew you to UCI/ITS-Irvine? What do you like best/find as strengths at UCI/ITS-Irvine?

When I interviewed here at UCI, I was impressed with the graduate students I met, the collegiality of the faculty in ITS and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and the breadth of transportation courses associated with the transportation undergraduate and graduate programs.

After six years, I can say that my initial assessment was quite accurate. Our ITS graduate students are great; the ITS and CEE faculty are not only collegial but truly supportive, particularly when a fellow faculty member is facing challenging times; and I still believe we offer the best combination of graduate-level courses in transportation systems in the country.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

For graduate students, choose a research topic that is both intellectually interesting AND important. To clarify what I mean by “important,” I will paraphrase Dimitris Bertsimas: If somehow you were entirely successful in answering your research question, will the answer actually impact the world around you (or our collective understanding of the world)? If the answer to that question is “no”, the research question is not worth pursuing.

More practically, I find there is another benefit of pursuing research questions that are externally important. Research is challenging and my confidence in my abilities and research approach can wane during a project, but when I know that my research results could impact the world around me it is easier to push through.

What are your research interests and what types of projects are you currently working on?

Over the past three years, I have had several projects related to microtransit services and their relationship with fixed-route transit. We developed an agent-based simulation model that captures the dynamic relationship between the demand for transit services (microtransit and fixed-route transit) and the performance of these transit services. Among other features of the simulation model, it outputs a wide-range of useful metrics for a transit agency interested in microtransit, including mode share, vehicle miles traveled, change in mobility, accessibility to jobs, operational cost, and subsidy per transit user.

Currently, we are using data from transit agencies in Sacramento and Atlanta, and from the San Diego Association of Governments to calibrate the model based on existing microtransit and fixed-route transit services.

Once we calibrate the model, we plan to evaluate a number of important integrated micro-transit and fixed-route transit design variables, including fare structure, fare values, microtransit fleet size, microtransit service region(s), and transit frequency.

What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far? What are the next steps in this research/what do you have planned?

My most ambitious (i.e., high-risk, high-reward) research to date is the work I did with my former PhD student Navjyoth Sarma. We introduced a completely new concept that we called network flow shareability, which we define as “the extent to which travelers within a subregion can overlap in time and space on physical links in the subregion’s road network.” We also introduced a mathematical programming model to operationalize this definition. Finally, we partially validated the model by showing that as our measure of network flow shareability for an area increases, so does the efficiency of a last-mile transit feeder service operating in the area.

Going forward, we believe the model can help design both fixed-route transit networks and integrated microtransit and fixed-route transit systems.

What are your other plans for future research?

I have an upcoming project with Waymo–the current leader in robo-taxi service in the United States. I will be doing some modeling and simulation work for them.

I am also working on a new project for the California Air Resources Board (CARB). We are building a tool for them to help forecast the potential accessibility improvements of synergistic small-scale infrastructure and mobility investments in disadvantaged communities. This project definitely meets both the “intellectually interesting” and “important” criteria I mentioned earlier. We need to figure out how to incorporate small investments (e.g. tree shade on a few sidewalks, bike lanes, etc.) into our forecasting model. If we can address this challenge, the research project can really help CARB evaluate and select proposals to fund with taxpayer money.

What are you watching right now?

The Olympics! I really enjoy the Olympics–especially basketball. I remember watching them with my parents, siblings, and cousins when I was six. Of course, we were making up our own athletic competitions and competing during commercial breaks. Go Team USA!

“In his first ever visit to ITS-Irvine (and to UCI) last summer, Secretary Omishakin stressed the pressing need and challenge to more effectively address the critical societal issue of traffic safety. While ITS has a broad interdisciplinary research portfolio, quite frankly to that point traffic safety had not been one of our strengths,” shared ITS-Irvine Director and Professor, Dr. Stephen Ritchie, as he opened the first annual Colloquium on the Future of Traffic Safety, this past April.

“That first visit led us to create a new interdisciplinary research collaboration between ITS and the UCI Department of Emergency Medicine, through our dynamo colleague Federico Vaca. The Colloquium on the Future of Traffic Safety is a key early outcome of launching that new initiative.”

Vaca, Professor and Executive Vice Chair of UCI School of Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Department, moderated the colloquium, which featured a welcome from UCI Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar, keynote from Secretary Omishakin, and presentations from Barbara Rooney, Director of the California Office of Traffic Safety and Chair of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association; Kristofer Kusano, Road Vehicle Safety Researcher for Waymo; Daniel McGehee, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Director of the Driving Safety Research Institute at University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center; Johnathon Ehsani, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins and driver training, testing and licensing expert.

“The colloquium revealed a true feasibility and expectancy of success as ITS considers further involvement and pursuit of research and program work in transportation safety with high viability with new collaborators within UCI and from across the country” noted Vaca.

“For me, a key takeaway was the idea of “safe system” approach to the goal of improving traffic safety,” said Vice Chancellor Pramod. “This systems approach of combining safe users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and post-crash care is both a major challenge and a large opportunity.”

This inaugural, day-long program included both the Colloquium and a special lecture for students by Secretary Omishakin, and drew more than 100 academic, and public and private sector attendees. In addition to the annual Colloquium, the ITS-Irvine Transportation Safety initiatives include ITS-faculty lead cutting edge research, quarterly webinars, and educational programs for both students, practitioners, and the community.

We congratulate Stephen Ritchie, named UC Irvine Chancellor’s Professor, for his exceptional scholarly achievements.

Professor Stephen Ritchie is a distinguished academic in the field of civil and environmental engineering, serving as both a professor at UCI and the director of ITS-Irvine.

His primary research area involves intelligent and sustainable transportation systems planning with a focus on integrating cutting-edge technologies to support decarbonization efforts within the freight transportation sector. He spearheads the ITS-Irvine Freight Mobility Living Laboratory initiative.

Professor Stephen Ritchie has been recognized for his outstanding contributions through prestigious awards such as the U.S National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, Pyke Johnson Outstanding Paper Award from the Transportation Research Board, and “Best of ITS” Research Award from ITS America. Furthermore, he played a pivotal role as founding editor-in-chief of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies journal.