Senior Personnel                                                                           Research Areas
PictureClick above headshot for accessing Dr. Yu Zhang's CV (PDF file).
Dr. Yu Zhang is a Professor with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida. Dr. Zhang leads the Smart Urban Mobility Laboratory at USF and serves as the co-Director of  Center for Transportation, Environmental, and Community Health (CTECH), a USDOT Tier 1 UTC. Dr. Zhang develops mathematical programming and solution algorithms, simulation tools, econometrics and statistical models, machine learning/deep learning methods for obtaining innovative solutions for more efficient, resilient, and sustainable multimodal transportation systems. Her recent efforts focus on emerging services and technologies in transportation, including Advanced Air Mobility and ACES Transportation.   
 
Dr. Zhang is the recipient of the 2010 Fred Burggraf Award, for excellence in transportation research by researchers 35 years of age or younger, presented by TRB of the National Academies of Science. She has published more than 60 papers in top transportation journals such as Transportation Research Part B, Part C, Part D, and Part E (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1202-626X). 

Dr. Zhang is serving as Associate Editor for Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment and Multimodal Transportation published by Elsevier, and Section Editor for Aerospace/Air Traffic and Transportation published by MDPI. She also serves on the editorial board of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, and Journal of Air Transport Management, and is a reviewer for many other prestigious journals in transportation research. 
 
Dr. Zhang is actively involved in professional organizations. She serves as the Chair for Transportation Research Board (TRB) Airfield and Airspace Performance (AV060) committee (Apr. 2017 - Present). Dr. Zhang served as the President for Chinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA) (Jan. 2016 - Jan. 2018). Dr. Zhang also serves as the President of Women in Transportation Seminar (WTS) Tampa Bay Chapter (Jan. 2020 - Present). 

Dr. Zhang holds Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of California Berkeley in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Bachelor from Southeast University of China in Transportation Engineering. 
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​Joseph Post has over 35 years of experience in aerospace, defense, and civil aviation.
Mr. Post has held various leadership positions at the Federal Aviation Administration, most recently as Acting Director of Systems Engineering. He has worked at Sikorsky Aircraft, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), Princeton Consultants, TRW, and The CNA Corporation. Immediately before joining FAA, Mr. Post was the military space analyst in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office.

​Mr. Post earned a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from M.I.T., a master’s degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University, and a master’s degree in Economics from George Mason University. Mr. Post is a co-inventor of three patents relating to helicopter flight controls, and holds FAA commercial pilot and remote pilot certificates.

Advanced Aerial Mobility: Network Design and Demand Estimation; Airspace Management of Integrated National Airspace System; Automated Air Traffic Management System; Community Integration, equity, and sustainability; Multimodal Connections with Emerging Technologies and Business Models.
 
*"Advanced aerial mobility involves the emergence of transformative and disruptive new airborne technology supporting an ecosystem designed to transport people and things to locations not traditionally served by current mode of air transportation, including both rural and the more challenging and complex urban environment."  --Advancing Aerial Mobility: A National Blueprint

Shared Micromobility, Ridesourcing, and Shared Automated Vehicles: Efficient and Equitable Micromobility Program Design and Evaluation; Impact Analysis of Shared AV; Multimodal Connections with Emerging Technologies and Business Models; Learning-based prediction of demand of different modes.

*Micromobility: namely docked and dockless sharing programs with bike, electric bikes and electric scooters.  

​Air Transportation: Applications of Machine Learning in Air Traffic Management; Air Traffic Flow Management; Air Transport Economics; Integrated Airspace with New Entrants; Green Aviation.  

Transportation Resilience: Criticality Analysis of Roadway Network and Freight Transportation System; Integrated Mitigation and Restoration Planning for Transportation and Freight Movement; Resiliency of Interdependent Critical Infrastructures  




Key words of research interests/areas:
machine learning; optimization; environment; energy; equity; sustainability; intermodal transportation; advanced air mobility (AAM); urban air mobility (UAM); emerging technologies and business models in transportation.


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​Patent applications in progress:

Automatic Prediction of Runway Configuration and Airport Acceptance Rate for Multi-Airport System, USF Ref. No. 20A099-Zhang
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A System and Method for Infrastructure Restoration Plan Optimization, USF Ref. No.17B148PRC_Zhao

​Honors and Awards:

Students and Others:
  • Congratulate Hualong Tang for receiving 2020 Florida Airport Council Scholarship. https://www.floridaairports.org/education-foundation/scholarship-program/​. 
  • Congratulate Hualong Tang and Yuan Wang for receiving Tenth National Aviation System Planning Symposium Graduate Student Participation Grants to participate this symposium May 20-23, 2018 in Anchorage, Alaska. 
  • Congratulate Natalia Barbour for being selected as one of 20 top graduate students in transportation to attend Eno Future Leaders Development Conference, May 20-24, 2018 in Washington D.C. 
  • Congratulate Yuan Wang for being awarded the 2017 Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship.
  • Congratulate Yuan Wang for for receiving the 2017  TRBACRP Graduate Research Award. It is national level award sponsored by FAA and administrated by Transportation Research Board.
  • Congratulate Natalia Barbour for receiving USF Graduate Student Success Scholarship. It is a three-year scholarship covering the tuition and stipend.  
  • Congratulate Nikhil Menon for being awarded the 2015 Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship.
  • Congratulate Makarand Gawade for receiving the 2014 ACRP Graduate Research Award. It is national level award sponsored by FAA and administrated by Transportation Research Board.
  • Congratulate Makarand Gawade for being awarded the 2013 Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship
  • Congratulate Rui Guo for receiving 2012 Anne Brewer Scholarship.
  • Congratulate Qing Wang for being awarded the 2012 Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship
  • Congratulate Makarand Gawade (as the second author with Dr. Yu Zhang) for receiving the Best Paper Award for the airline operations, quality of service and marketing track in 5th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT 2012).
  • Congratulate Nagesh Nayak (as the second author with Dr. Yu Zhang) for receiving 2011 Transportation Research Board's Fred Burggraf Award, which recognizes excellence in transportation research by researchers 35 years of age or under.
  • Congratulate Nagesh Nayak for receiving 2011 Anne Brewer Scholarship.
  • Congratulat Nagesh Nayak for receiving 2010 ACRP Graduate Research Award. It is national level award sponsored by FAA and administrated by Transportation Research Board.
  • Congratulate Hongyun Chen for being awarded the 2010 Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship
  • Congratulate Nagesh Nayak for receiving 2008 Anne Brewer Scholarship. Anne Brewer was a great ITS visionary and leader. The ITS Florida scholarship program renamed in her honor will serve to assist future ITS leaders in Florida and serve as a lasting memory of Anne’s contributions to ITS. 
Dr. Yu Zhang
  1. Amazon Research Awards (2021), https://www.amazon.science/research-awards/program-updates/2020-amazon-research-awards-recipients-announced. 
  2. Best Paper Award for the airline operations, quality of service and marketing track in 5th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT 2012).
  3. 2010 Fred Burggraf Award, Aviation, for excellence in transportation research by researchers 35 years of age or younger, presented by Transportation Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Science
  4. Robert Horonjeff Memorial Grant (2007)
  5. Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad (2006)
  6. UCTC Dissertation Grant (2006-2007)
  7. UCTC fellowship (2005-2006)
  8. Graduate Scholarship, UC Berkeley (2003-2004)
  9. Departmental Block Grant Fellowship, UC Berkeley (2002-2003)
  10. James H. Kell Student Competition Award, Institute of Transportation Engineer (2003)
  11. Best paper of Nanjing Transportation Bureau, China, (1999)
  12. Employee of the year, Nanjing Highway Administration, China (1998)
  13. Honored Graduate, Southeast University, China (1997)
  14. Undergraduate Fellowship, Southeast University, China (1993-1997)