Category: Faculty Spotlight

Bill Sampson, PE, retired after 30 years as Director of the McTrans Center in March 2020. On Friday, March 20, former students and coworkers came together via Zoom, an online web conferencing platform, to celebrate his time with the University of Florida. Having a virtual retirement party allowed participants to celebrate Bill’s time with McTrans while being […]

Dr. Behzad Aghdashi is the newly appointed Director of the McTrans Center. Dr. Aghdashi previously worked as the Driver and Transportation Analytics Lab (DaTA Lab) manager at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Dr. Aghdashi, a certified project manager (PMP), also served as an adjunct assistant professor at the […]

Dr. Lili Du, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, has been working on several research projects in her years with the UFTI; some of her work has been supported by the NSF CAREER she received in 2016. The NSF CAREER award is the Faculty Early Career Development Program, which supports early-career faculty who have the […]

Dr. Nithin Agarwal has been appointed Director of the UFTI Technology Transfer (T2) Center, effective February 21, 2020.  Dr. Agarwal has served as the Assistant Director of the T2 Center for over a year. Dr. Agarwal also manages the UFTI’s Transportation Safety Center where he also leads efforts to evaluate emerging technologies utilizing the UFTI’s […]

Dr. Nithin Agarwal gave a presentation during the Florida Puerto Rico ITE District Annual Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His presentation, “UF Transportation Safety Center’s Effort on Improving Rural Road Safety in Florida” was given during the Safety and Vision Zero Initiatives Session. Presentation Abstract Crashes on roadways are random events and with extensive […]

Several UFTI faculty and students presented at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle this past month. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Annual Meeting provides attendees with a unique opportunity to connect and network. Dr. Lily Elefteriadou gave a presentation titled “Signal Control and Autonomous Vehicle Trajectory Optimization for Enhancing Mobility” […]

This past month, the University of Florida and Info Tech hosted the North American Linked Data in Architecture and Construction (LDAC) Workshop on Linked Building Data and Semantic Web Technologies (WLS 2019). The theme of the workshop was the Future of Information Exchanges and Interoperability. Dr. Lily Elefteriadou presented a plenary session “Capitalizing on Autonomy, […]

Two UF Civil Engineering professors teamed up with Feld Entertainment to research the impact of over-sized motor vehicles on venue floors in an event called Monster Jam, the largest motor-sport event that tours globally throughout arenas and stadiums. Funded by a grant from Feld, Jennifer Bridge, Ph.D., and Christopher Ferraro, Ph.D., visited Marlins Park, a […]

Dr. Lili Du, UFTI associate professor, is working on a project funded by the Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development, and Education Center that aims to understand how emerging travel modes such as shared mobility services, including car-sharing and bike-sharing, will reshape the way people travel. Dr. Du and her team also want to find out how these […]

Universidad de La Salle, an International University in Bogota, Colombia hosts Summer Academy every year. Out of 200+ proposals around 20 courses were selected to be a part of this program this year. https://www.lasalle.edu.co/la-salle-internacional/la-salle-summer-academy/session+two Dr. Pruthvi Manjunatha, who recently graduated with his Ph.D. and will be working with the UFTI as a post-doctoral associate, taught […]