Category: Faculty Spotlight

By Ines Aviles-Spadoni, M.S., UFTI Research Coordinator After a decade as the driving force behind the success of the UF Transportation Institute (UFTI), Lily Elefteriadou, a distinguished professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering (CCE) within the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure and the Environment (ESSIE), is stepping down as its director. Kyle […]

By Ines Aviles-Spadoni, M.S., UFTI Research Coordinator Sangung Park is a new postdoctoral associate at the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI). His work focuses on transportation and infrastructure systems engineering. Park is from South Korea. He attended the University of Seoul where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Park attended Purdue University for […]

UFTI Director Dr. Lily Elefteriadou was recently honored as a lifetime fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Dr. Elefteriadou is affiliated with the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. She is a professor of civil engineering and […]

University of Florida faculty Dr. Sanaz Motamedi, Dr. Eakta Jain, Dr. Xilei Zhao, Dr. Wayne Gian and Dr. Boyi Ju were selected as semifinalists as part of the Inclusive Design challenge team led by the University of Kansas. The research team is focused on people with cognitive disabilities such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and […]

Congratulations to Dr. Siva Srinivasan, Dr. Rui Guo, Dr. Karla Rodrigues-Silva, and Dr. Gustavo de Andrade for representing the UFTI in ITE’s Vision Zero Sandbox Challenge. The UFTI team has been selected as one of two finalists for the Professional Competition category. This year’s goal was to develop a methodology that used automated conflict data […]

By: Dr. Justin Mason, Dr. Sandra Winter, Dr. Ilir Bejleri, and Donna Schoenfelder Research has shown that as people age, their eyesight, hearing, and reflexes are not as sharp as they once were. Additionally, their reaction time decreases, making it no longer safe to drive. As a consequence, older drivers face several decisions related to […]

This study was recently published in IEEE – Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9312471) Doctoral candidate Stephen Spana and his adviser, Dr. Lili Du of the UF Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering, worked on a National Science Foundation study aimed at mitigating system traffic congestion by leveraging users’ reaction to real-time traffic data provision […]

Connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies present great opportunities for reducing traffic congestion through advanced sensors, communication, and portable computing devices – those which assist with conducting cooperative or coordinated driving. However, much of the CAV-related work focuses on assisting self-driving maneuvers and an individual vehicle’s safety. The technology does not promise traffic stream efficiency […]

These days, road networks in our cities contain a variety of smart and connected infrastructure which generate an abundance of Big Data. This data can be processed to improve the flow of traffic and safety for both vehicles and pedestrians. At the UFTI, transportation and computer science engineers are working on a Florida Department of […]

COIVD-19 continues to affect the lives of millions of people around the world with deleterious effects to the economy. Understanding where people are traveling to, and the decision-making process associated with travel, including the effects on transit and ridership, will be key to assisting agencies in assessing emergency responses and preparing for major public health […]

The UFTI welcomes Dr. Fabio Sasahara as Associate Engineer at the UFTI/McTrans Center. Dr. Sasahara specializes in applications related to the Highway Capacity Manual (HCS). He will be engaging with software developers to expand the HCS, provide customer technical support for clients, including training and conducting webinars. Dr. Sasahara has a Ph.D. in transportation engineering […]

The UFTI welcomes Dr. Gustavo R. de Andrade as Associate Engineer at the UFTI’s McTrans Center. Dr. de Andrade has over 13 years of experience in transportation engineering consultancy, where he has contributed to and led projects on travel demand and revenue forecasting for PPP, multimodal planning, cost-benefit studies, road safety, training, and development of […]

Dr. Khiem Tram is an Associate Professor in the UF Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering specializing in Geosystems Engineering. Geosystems engineering is the application of scientific methods and engineering principles to the acquisition, interpretation, and the use of materials related to the Earth’s crust for solving engineering problems. How does Dr. Tram’s work relate […]

Mehri “Mehrsa” Mohebbi holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Arts, and Planning (DAAP). She previously worked as an urban planner and qualitative researcher addressing health and social equity in transportation and community planning in different states across the country. In the last few years, […]

With an increase in the use of computer software, technologies and automation such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the built environment and the architecture, engineering, construction and operation industry (AEOC) have been experiencing a transformation that has greatly improved their industry. Due to a surge in the application […]

Dr. Kyle Riding is an associate professor in the Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida where he is active in concrete durability research. He has been with the university since 2016 and is involved in the Materials and Infrastructure Research Initiative within the UFTI. This month we took the opportunity […]

Micro-mobility is an emerging form of transportation which involves shared electric bikes or scooters. Micro-mobility companies have been rolling out in metropolitan areas across the United States and around the world. User surveys conducted by micro-mobility company Bird indicate that individuals utilize micro-mobility to access public transit. The potential exists for micro-mobility to improve first-and-last-mile […]

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, […]