• September 25, 2024

    Meet 2024-2025 PacTrans Fellow: Adam Schulze

    Today we’re spotlighting one of our upcoming 2024-2025 PacTrans Graduate Fellows, Adam Schulze. Adam comes from a Software Engineering background and recently made the decision to pivot into Transportation Engineering. His decision stems from a desire to effect meaningful change in society, specifically our transit systems. Best of luck starting your Transportation Engineering Master’s journey at the University of Washington this fall, thanks for sharing a little bit about yourself, and welcome to PacTrans!

    Where are you currently located and what have you been up to?
    I’m currently located in San Jose, CA. These past few months I’ve just been working part time while taking classes, but I was formerly a software engineer at Wayfair (September 2019-June 2023).

    Why did you decided to pivot from Software Engineering to Transportation Engineering?
    My general motivation for pivoting is that I want my work to make a more significant, positive impact. Transportation affects everyone, and it’s a field I’m personally attached to. Growing up, I would go to Japan almost annually to visit family. There, I got to experience their excellent transit system, which was quite a contrast from the car-centric culture of San Jose. It made it clear to me that there’s a lot of room for improvement for transportation here in the States. 

    I’m also excited by the types of conceptual problems I’ll be taking on in Transportation Engineering. I got to sit in on a lecture at UW on the Vehicle Routing Problem, which was exciting since I really enjoyed these types of optimization problems in undergrad. I’m also looking forward to doing more data science and statistical modeling, which I haven’t had the chance to fully dive into (I got to work adjacent to data scientists, but never really as a data scientist). 

    I think there may still be the lingering question of “Why not just work as a software engineer for an entity that works with transportation?” I certainly had to grapple with this question as I was first considering this career pivot. While there certainly is some overlap/similarity, the type of work will still be different in some ways (as I mentioned above, I’ll get to work on data science/modeling). That said, I think my primary reason for fully pivoting is to gain a more complete understanding of the field of transportation. I want to eventually be able to work at a higher level, where I can influence design and/or policy. I think the best way to reach that level of understanding is to fully immerse myself in transportation engineering, rather than work adjacent to it.

    What’s your favorite college memory?
    It’s tough to choose, but I’d say my favorite college memory is from my sophomore year. My track and field team was able to win both the men’s and women’s conference championships. The women’s team crushed it (they had nearly a 90-point lead over the next team), but it was super close on the men’s side (we only won by 1 point). It made for a super exciting meet and it felt amazing to see everyone’s hard work pay off!

    What’s your career path been like?
    I come from a software/machine learning engineering background, and I’d like to apply my skills toward the improvement and expansion of public transit. As a graduate student, I’m looking to gain a more thorough understanding of the transportation space, and see where and how I can apply my existing skills (or learn new ones) to transit projects. After graduation, I plan to pursue a consulting role to get hands-on experience with a wide variety of transit projects. Further down the line, I’d be interested in working for a DoT to lead larger projects which create new transit systems or expand existing ones.

    What’s your greatest professional accomplishment?
    I would say that my greatest professional accomplishment was a pilot project I led while working at Wayfair. I worked with our Machine Learning Platforms team to deploy an existing model with a new serving framework, and also worked with the original data scientists to optimize the model code. We were able to speed up the end-to-end model inference pipeline by 85%.

    How has PacTrans benefitted you?
    I really appreciate that PacTrans provides the resources for me to excel in the transportation industry. One of the major pull factors for me when applying to the program was the internship component, as that will allow me to get hands-on experience that complements my studies. I’m also very excited to work with the other PacTrans fellows, some of whom I got to meet during the UW prospective student’s weekend. They’ve already been super helpful with suggestions for potential research areas and career paths, so I look forward to working with them more closely when the school year starts!

    What are some hobbies or interests you have?
    I enjoy trail running and playing volleyball. I’m also a huge fan of the show Taskmaster!

    Want to know more about Adam? Connect with him on LinkedIn!

    About the PacTrans Graduate Fellowship

    The PacTrans Fellowship is focused on students interested in pursuing a master’s degree and with aspirations of being industry leaders in the transportation field. In addition to receiving a quality education, PacTrans fellows also participate in an internship, allowing for their knowledge obtained in the classroom to be supplemented with practical knowledge of the transportation industry.