Category: Spotlight

The Institute of Transportation Studies, Irvine is proud to spotlight faculty researcher Dr. Jacqueline Huynh for her contributions to the Transportation Research Immersion Program (TRIP) and her dedication to advancing the future of aviation. 

Dr. Huynh began her academic career studying Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering in addition to Mechanical Engineering at UC Irvine. As an undergraduate, Dr. Huynh did not originally intend to further her studies beyond a Bachelor’s degree. After immersing herself in various design projects, however, her interest in research ignited. Following her graduation in 2014, Dr. Huynh went on to earn her Masters (2017) and PhD (2020) at MIT in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. Dr. Huynh returned to UC Irvine to expand sustainable aviation as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. 

“I really wanted to come back to UC Irvine… because it gave me so much and I really wanted to give back.”

Following her return to UC Irvine, Dr. Huynh has focused her research on designing the aircraft systems of tomorrow, reducing aviation’s environmental impacts in the process. By furthering technologies such as hydrogen and electrified propulsion, Dr. Huynh’s work mitigates aircraft noise and emissions negatively impacting overtly exposed communities. 

“We’ve proven… there are many opportunities for us to make these sectors more sustainable. It’s up to us—the Institute—to figure out what those solutions are.” 

When Dr. Huynh isn’t figuring out solutions, she’s mentoring the next generation of transportation leaders. As an ITS associate, and as a faculty advisor in the Pre-college Research Immersion and Transportation Research Immersion Programs (PRIME and TRIP), Dr. Huynh leads a team of high school and undergraduate students on community-focused research projects. This summer, Dr. Huynh and her team are developing sustainable flight operations for advanced air mobility with communities at the center. While the work Dr. Huynh and her team are conducting is complex, students of all levels have an opportunity to contribute through the TRIP and PRIME programs. 

“You don’t need to be an expert to start doing real research. If you don’t know something, you can learn and figure it out. That’s part of what research is… Students go from having just taken a coding class… to simulating aircraft flying over cities and modeling flight paths.”

Dr. Huynh strongly encourages students with a future in transportation to actively question the world around them, considering the different shapes of a more sustainable future. 

“My hope is a transportation system that supports global growth while minimizing negative impacts to human health.”

You can read more about Dr. Huynh’s research here.

Author Erin Boshers is a recent graduate of Urban Studies and Literary Journalism at UC Irvine, where she explored the intersection of infrastructure, social behaviors, and public policy. She has conducted transportation and housing research through roles at Caltrans, the Kennedy Commission, Jamboree Housing, and the Institute of Transportation Studies.

Each summer, the ITS-Irvine Transportation Research Immersion Program (TRIP) pairs undergraduate student researchers with faculty in paid positions to contribute meaningfully to ongoing transportation research projects, and the Pre-college Research Immersion Program pairs high school student researchers with faculty in unpaid positions to similarly contribute to these projects.  To learn more about these programs, contact ITS-Irvine Assistant Director for Programs and Engagement Dr. Victoria Deguzman at vvdeguzm@uci.edu.

The Institute of Transportation Studies, Irvine is proud to spotlight former student researcher, Joseph Faria-Poynter for his contributions to the Transportation Research Immersion Program (TRIP) and his dedication to advancing the transportation systems of tomorrow.

Joseph joined the TRIP program in summer 2022 while an undergraduate in civil engineering. Throughout the program , Joseph felt encouraged to explore what most interested him. After engaging in collaborative brainstorming with his advisors, Joseph began researching complete streets and pedestrian refuge islands. He learned to think outside the box, drawing inspiration from cities like San Francisco, to reimagine the landscapes of Orange County.

“TRIP helped me develop critical thinking and independent research skills to try to improve transportation throughout the state. It also made me more aware of the importance of accessibility, equity, and multi-modality within transportation.”

Joseph’s research provided him with a crucial understanding of how people interact with transit infrastructure, especially in regards to their safety.

“Transportation involves people and how everything relates, it’s not just design manuals.”

Building upon this understanding of transportation systems, Joseph now works as an assistant engineer at VST Engineering, in Oakland, while also pursuing a Masters in Transportation Management at San Jose State University. He hopes to one day improve safety and mobility in his own community by becoming a rail transit agency manager, a role that will provide him with a tangible sense of impact where it matters most.

When asked what practical advice students can gather from his experiences at ITS, Joseph urged the importance of remaining open to new experiences. By allowing passion to guide your research, there’s less of a need to have everything figured out.

“Just try something meaningful to you—it’ll come together.”

Author Erin Boshers is a recent graduate of Urban Studies and Literary Journalism at UC Irvine, where she explored the intersection of infrastructure, social behaviors, and public policy. She has conducted transportation and housing research through roles at Caltrans, the Kennedy Commission, and the Institute of Transportation Studies.

Each summer, the ITS-Irvine Transportation Research Immersion Program pairs undergraduate student researchers with faculty in paid positions to contribute meaningfully to ongoing transportation research projects.  To learn more about the program, contact ITS-Irvine Assistant Director for Programs and Engagement Dr. Victoria Valentine Deguzman at vvdeguzm@uci.edu.

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.

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!

“Geoffrey is an exceptional student with a passion for transportation. After his performance in my undergraduate course covering optimization in the context of civil engineering this past winter, I was excited for him to conduct research with me this summer through the TRIP program. Geoffrey has been an invaluable asset to our team, and I am excited to have him continue with us on a funded research project this fall.”

-Michael Hyland, Advisor

How did you hear about this summer research program?

I took a class with Professor Hyland and worked with him throughout the year. I was very interested in the subject matter of mathematical programming and optimization. Professor Hyland told me about this summer program and I was very happy to be selected.

What interested you most about it?

There was a lot of appeal to me about this program; my favorite part is being exposed to such cool and interesting research so early in my academic career. I didn’t know Transportation Systems Modeling and Analysis even existed as a field until about four months ago, and now I can spend the rest of my undergrad (and possibly grad school) studying it.

What are your career goals?

My end goal is to work for a public agency and help develop transportation solutions in a big metropolitan area. I also am interested in working in rail logistics for a freight rail company, or being employed at a large port could be great too.

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

This program helps me become a better researcher, student and engineer in many ways. Chief among them is how I am encouraged to think for myself and develop solutions without a right answer, which is much different from many classes I am taking. I am also learning hard skills including research, programming and writing that are applicable in my future.

How will this program help you in school and/or your eventual career?

The TRIP program helps me understand the world of research better and how to explore my interests deeper than before. It allows me to build connections that help in future academic or career pursuits.

What intrigues you about research?

Research in transportation explores the unknown worlds where we can design whole new systems, which I find fascinating. I love poking around in the hypothetical so that we can help industry and policymakers make decisions in the real world.

What intrigues you about transportation?

Transportation is so fundamental to how we live our lives.  Any improvement to transportation serves to enhance the lives of everyone, especially those who have been historically excluded. I love the challenge of serving the public by building up our systems.

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

My current project, Quantifying “Shareability” in Transportation Networks using Graph Theory,  is teaching me a lot about computer science, high level math, and their intersections with civil engineering. I enjoy seeing how the fields connect and overlap, which allows us to solve incredibly complex problems.

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

I hope to discover a new passion for computer science. I always thought coding was something I would never grasp, but I am figuring out that it is a valuable skill that I can begin to master in this program.

What is something interesting few people know about you?

I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite with my good friend, Sheryl.

What is your superpower?

I am a certified lifeguard!

What is something unique about you?

I played water polo for six years, from middle school to the end of high school.

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

I became interested in transportation by following a trail of interests that initially had very little to do with transportation. I earned my bachelor’s degree with a double major in anthropology and English and my master’s degree in civil engineering with a specialization in structures and materials. From there, I wanted to continue my education and simultaneously find a way to combine my passions for society and the built environment. While researching doctoral programs, I discovered the specialization of human travel behavior housed within civil engineering. I was attracted to the intersection of systems design and the human experience. My interests continue to grow in the direction of transportation equity, environmental justice, and social change.

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

I was drawn to UCI because of the Black Thriving Initiative, which is a campus-wide interdisciplinary commitment to advancing the wellbeing of Black individuals and communities across the country through research, teaching, and service. It was the first program of its kind that I had encountered. With the help of significant encouragement from faculty, family, and friends, I worked up the courage to apply and began the process that led me to UCI. I am grateful to now be part of ITS-Irvine, which contributes to the Black Thriving Initiative, because the faculty are very supportive; they maintain positive relationships with each other and honor a healthy work-life balance.

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

My research has examined transportation behavior during disasters and the role of social infrastructure in facilitating the sharing of rides and resources. Within a few months of joining UCI, I started a project in collaboration with the local non-profit organization Climate Resolve examining transportation access to resilience hubs in Los Angeles. I am drawn to the concept of resilience hubs as community-based spaces that provide essential resources to the public during both day-to-day conditions and extreme events. The goal of this initial project is to ensure that these hubs remain accessible during climate hazards, especially for individuals who do not drive a personal vehicle.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?

The main transportation issues that keep me up at night are economic inequity and the constraints that places on where people can live and work and how they can travel; the impacts of climate disasters and what we can do to better prepare for them; and how we can design mobility systems that better support the innate human desire to help one other in times of need.