pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

PacTrans consortium member University of Alaska Fairbanks has recently partnered with StoryCorps, an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate the lives of everyday Americans by listening to their stories. UAF’s role is leading and recording science-based stories and dialogues. PacTrans PI, University of Alaska Assistant Professor Nathan Belz, will be recording conversations related to transportation.

This partnership has even blossomed into an NSF proposal that was just submitted in which Dr. Belz will play a role as thematic leader in charge of coordinating and condensing conversations based in engineering, technology, and energy. Identifying real world needs and presenting them to the researchers who have the resources to investigate those needs is of top priority to PacTrans. The hope is to use these conversations to identify common themes for research needs and to make a meaningful impact on our transportation systems.