Meet The Operations Team

The PacTrans Operations Team provides support for the day to day needs of the Center, which is located on the UW campus in Seattle, Washington.

  • Yinhai Wang, Ph.D.
    Director
    Office:
    (206) 616-2696
    yinhai@uw.edu
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    Yinhai Wang, Ph.D. Director
    Office:
    (206) 616-2696
    yinhai@uw.edu

    Dr. Wang is a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. He serves as director for the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), USDOT University Transportation Center for Federal Region 10. Dr. Wang’s active research fields include traffic sensing, e-science of transportation, traffic operations, accident modelling, traffic system control, and traffic simulation. He has over 100 academic publications and received one US patent and two provisional. He was the winner of the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Best Paper Award for 2003.

    Dr. Wang serves as members of three TRB committees: Transportation Information Systems and Technology Committee (ABJ50), Freeway Operations Committee (AHB20), and Highway Capacity and Quality of Services Committee (AHB40) at the Transportation Research Board (TRB). He also chairs the research subcommittee for AHB40. Additionally, Dr. Wang is an elected member of the Board of Governors for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society and plays an associate editor’s role for both the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering and Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering.

  • Xuegang (Jeff) Ban, Ph.D.
    Associate Director of Research
    Office:
    (206) 543-9655
    banxuegang@gmail.com
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    Xuegang (Jeff) Ban, Ph.D. Associate Director of Research
    Office:
    (206) 543-9655
    banxuegang@gmail.com

    Dr. Xuegang (Jeff) Ban is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. His research interests are in transportation network system modeling and simulation, urban traffic system modeling and operations, transportation big data analytics, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). His research develops modeling tools to study dynamic transportation networks with emerging technologies and systems such as connected/automated vehicles and shared mobility. He also works on urban traffic systems modeling and performance evaluation using mobile sensing data. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2010), and the New Faculty Award by the Council of University Transportation Centers and American Road & Transportation Builders Association (2012). His research has been funded by the NSF, US DOT, Volvo Foundation, and various state and local transportation agencies.

    Dr. Ban serves on the Network Modeling Committee (ADB30) and the Vehicle Highway Automation Committee (AHB30) of Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies. He was the elected Vice Chair (2010-2011) and Chair (2012-2013) of the ITS SIG (cluster) under Transportation Science and Logistics (Society) of INFORMS. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Networks and Spatial Economic, and Transportmetrica B: Dynamics, and serves on the editorial board of Transportation Research Part B, Part C. His research has produced more than 100 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings.

  • Steve Marshall
    Executive Director - Workforce Development Institute
    (206) 909-2019
    marshallsj@comcast.net
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    Steve Marshall Executive Director - Workforce Development Institute
    (206) 909-2019
    marshallsj@comcast.net

    STEVE MARSHALL is Executive Director of PacTrans Workforce Development Institute. He is also the co-founder and Executive Policy Director of the Center for Advanced Transportation and Energy Solutions. For the past three years he served as the Transportation Technology Partnership Manager for the City of Bellevue. He has more than 35 years of experience working on energy and transportation issues, including serving as chief outside legal counsel to Puget Sound Power & Light and as the manager of Generation, Transmission and Conservation for Snohomish County Public Utility District.

    Steve has served on the boards of numerous civic groups including the as the chair of the Administrative Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association and has been named to “Best Lawyers in America.” He has served as an advisor to the Washington State Economic Development Commission and was on the Regional Transit Task Force working on regional transportation issues. He is currently on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Executive Advisory Committee.

    He is a frequent speaker and writer on energy and transportation issues. Steve and Bruce Agnew organized and moderated a series of conferences on transportation and energy that became known as the “Beyond Oil” conferences and has been a frequent contributor to the Seattle Times and the Puget Sound Business Journal.

    Steve wrote the chapter on utility issues in the book “Plug-in Electric Cars: What Role for Washington,” edited by David Sandalow, former Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy. He is one of the authors of the book, “Road Vehicle Automation.”

    He graduated from the University of Washington Magna, Cum Laude and from Harvard Law School, Cum Laude.

  • Cole Kopca
    Assistant Director
    Office:
    (206) 685-6648
    ckopca@uw.edu
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    Cole Kopca Assistant Director
    Office:
    (206) 685-6648
    ckopca@uw.edu

    Cole Kopca is PacTrans’ Assistant Director. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Iowa and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Washington. In September of 2016 Cole will also be returning to school to begin doctoral work under the supervision of PacTrans Director, Dr. Yinhai Wang.
    While in graduate school Cole conducted research for the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, and since had been working with Alta Planning and Design, a national bike/ped transportation planning consultant.
    A self proclaimed urbanist, Cole and his wife Emily manage the apartment building that they live in in Fremont. They both volunteer with Young Life, enjoy traveling, skiing, and exploring cities. Cole is an avid homebrewer and enjoys hiking and mountaineering, and wants to change the world by providing all people with a multitude of reliable and healthy transportation options.

  • Christina Yarbrough
    Finance, Grants, and Research Manager
    Office:
    (206) 221-4145
    crystina@uw.edu
  • Melanie Paredes
    Program Coordinator
    Office:
    (206) 685-0395
    melqcp@uw.edu
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    Melanie Paredes Program Coordinator
    Office:
    (206) 685-0395
    melqcp@uw.edu

    Melanie Paredes joined the PacTrans team as our new Program Coordinator. Melanie will serve as the resource person for PacTrans researchers, fellows, and students on center events, seminar talks, conferences and other research needs. She will also help coordinate meetings, seminars, conferences and travel and take on grant and fiscal support.

    Melanie has been with the University of Washington for more than twenty years. She’s worked at the UW Department of Radiology as Facilities Coordinator, UW Division of Gastroenterology as Assistant to the Lab Manager, UW Academic HR as Human Resources Assistant, and at the UW Payroll Office as Payroll Technician. Outside of UW, she’s worked at Archdiocese of Seattle as Assistant to the HR Director.

    Melanie has a B.S. in Zoology and credits in Education. She also volunteers as event coordinator of an annual ethnic Art & Culture festival at the Seattle Center and is an alumni member of the Greater Washington Alpha Phi Omega which organizes the “Adopt-A-Park” and Feeding Program.

     

  • Tasha Thakkar
    Undergraduate Student Communication Intern
    tasha123@uw.edu
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    Tasha Thakkar Undergraduate Student Communication Intern
    tasha123@uw.edu

    Tasha is an undergraduate student at the University of Washington pursuing Marketing and Informations Systems. She’s passionately curious about projects at the intersection of business and technology. A strong believer in the power of creating meaningful and lasting relationships, Tasha is involved in a lot of leadership activities on campus. She has served as not only the Director of Marketing, but also the Co-President of the Society for Human Resource Management at the University of Washington, growing the organization over a span of two years. She’s also a part of the Lavin Entrepreneurship Program at the Michael G. Foster School of Business. Tasha considers herself to be a baby fledgling feminist and works actively towards the advocacy of women’s rights by organizing a series of webinars, events, and discussions.