• November 30, 2020

    Three PacTrans Student Researchers Awarded Eisenhower Fellowships

    This year, three PacTrans student researchers received Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) awards.

    Amy Wyman (photo left), at Oregon State University, under the direction of David Hurwitz; Cole Kopca (photo center), at the University of Washington, under the direction of Yinhai Wang; and Brian Staes (photo right), at Oregon State University, under the director of Robert Bertini, were the three recipients from our consortium partner universities.

    “The Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) awards fellowships to students pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines. This program advances the transportation workforce by helping to attract the nation’s brightest minds to the field of transportation, encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees, and helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.

    From its initial support of graduate research fellowships in 1983, to the current program’s inception in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, the DDETFP has awarded over $50 million to the brightest minds in the transportation industry. From this investment, fellows have pushed for innovative change in multimodal areas from highway infrastructure to aviation to maritime, making the industry more effective and efficient. Fellows pursue careers in academia, private industry, and public service, becoming leaders across the nation.”

    Amy Wyman is entering her 2nd year as a PhD student in the Oregon State University (OSU) Civil Engineering PhD program. She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from OSU in 2017, then worked for two years in Phoenix, Arizona as a traffic engineer at the civil engineering consulting firm Burgess & Niple before returning to OSU for graduate school. She is very excited to be a member of OSU’s Driving and Bicycling Simulator Laboratory, where she is currently researching bicyclist, pedestrian, and autonomous vehicle interactions. Amy is passionate about active transportation and transportation safety topics and promoting women and minorities in STEM. She is currently the President of the OSU Institute of Transportation Engineers Student Chapter.

    Cole Kopca is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington, and currently serves as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Smart Transportation Applications & Research Laboratory. Cole is a coauthor on two accepted peer reviewed journal article and three peer reviewed conference papers presented at international conferences. He has been recognized with several accolades including the UW Graduate School’s Top Scholar Award, a 2019 USDOT Outstanding Student of the Year Award, and was recognized by PacTrans with a second-place finish in the Best Poster awards at the Annual Region 10 Student Poster Competition. Cole serves as the Transportation and Development Institute (T&DI) representative on the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Student Presidential Group as well as the University of Washington representative to the ITS Washington Board.

    Brian Staes, E.I., is a graduate research assistant under the direction of Dr. Robert L. Bertini at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) located at the University of South Florida. He is currently working on an assessment of highway operations in the State of Florida and California during both large-scale notice and no-notice evacuations. He graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) with a bachelor’s in civil engineering in 2018. While attending FGCU he was an engineering teacher’s assistant and an active member in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). His area of focus for his master’s is transportation engineering and he is currently working on his master’s thesis which will identify variations in limited access facility traffic flow theory during evacuations. He plans on pursuing a PhD at the University of South Florida under the direction of Dr. Robert L. Bertini.