People

Current Students and PostDocs/Researchers:
  Hualong Tang (PhD)
   Zhiqiang Wu (PhD)
Yujie Guo (PhD)
  Rocio Frej Vitalle (PhD)
Vahid Mahmoodian (PhD)
Rui Dai (PhD)
Chunfu Xin (PhD)
Sett Thiri Aung (MS)
Yuan Xu (MS)

Students That Have Graduated:
Yuan Wang (PhD, Dec. 2019)
  Natalia Barbour (PhD, May 2019, MIT PostDoc)
Ali Shamansouri (MS, May 2019)
  Aritra Pal (PhD, May 2017, Air Liquide Delaware Research and Technology Center, Research Scientist)
Nikhil Menon (PhD, Dec. 2016, USF CUTR Post-doc)
Rui Guo (PhD, May 2015, Instructor, U of Florida)
Makarand Gawade (MS, 2015)
Yu An (PhD, May 2014)
Qing Wang (PhD, May 2013, Apple Inc.)
Jacob Mirabella (MS, May 2013, Cambridge Systematics)
Bing Huang (May PhD, May 2012)
  Nagesh Nayak (PhD, May 2012, Citi Bank)
Arjun Chauhan (MS, May 2012, )
Hongyun Chen (PhD, May 2010, ERAU Faculty)

Current Visiting Scholars and Students:
Mei Tao (Scholar, Civil Aviation University of China)
Yiyong Pan (Scholar, Nanjing Forestry University, China)

Former Visiting Scholars:
Hang Zhou (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics )
Meng Jia (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Rong Hu (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Junfeng Zhang (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Yafei Li (Civil Aviation University of China)
Xiaowei Tang (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) Fang Sun (Civil Aviation University of China)
Yang Liu (Beihang University)
Quan Shao (Nanjing Aeronautics and Astronautics University) Yingyan Liu (Changan University, China)
   Yigang Huang (Civil Aviation University of China)
   Xinming Tang (Nanjing Aeronautics and Astronautics University)
   Ming Zhang (Nanjing Aeronautics and Astronautics University)
  Dashan Wang (Traffic Safety Research Center, MoPS, China)
   Leiyuan Zhang (Traffic Safety Research Center, MoPS, China)
  Yue Yang (Scholar, Civil Aviation University of China)
  Xiangling Zhao (Scholar, Civil Aviation University of China)

Former Researcher
Fang Sun (Researcher May 2018 - May 2019, Now Civil Aviation University of China )
Tingting Zhao (PostDoc)

Graduate Research Assistants

Mr. Yujie Guo got his Bachelor's degree in civil engineering from University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) in 2016. Then he went to USA and got master's degree in the concentration of transportation from Northwestern University in 2017. In spring 2018, he joined Dr. Zhang's group. His research interests including transportation data visualization, machine learning, public transit and shared mobility. At leisure time, he likes playing soccer, listening to music and watching American drama.

Mr. Hualong Tang is currently pursuing a PhD degree in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF. He jointed USF in Spring 2017. He has graduated with his bachelors in Automation from Chongqing University (China).He received his Master's degree in Civil Aviation University of China in Transportation Management and Planning. He is working as a research assistant with Dr. Yu Zhang and conducting projects related to air transportation. His research interests focus on air transportation system performance measurement and management, airport design, management, and operation, and environment and energy efficiency.

Mr. Zhiqiang Wu got his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering at Chang'an University. Zhiqiang joined Dr. Zhang's group in August 2016 and now is pursuing his PhD degree in Civil and Environment Engineering at USF. His research interests focus on multimodal charging facility deployment modeling for electric vehicles in the context of emerging technologies (i.e. dynamic wireless charging, V2V and V2I connectivity, smart charging, etc.)

Mr. Chengcheng Mou received his B.S. degree in Computer Science from National University of Malaysia in 2011, and M.S. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from University of South Florida in 2015. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. program in Computer Science and Engineering at USF supervised by Dr. Yicheng Tu, and a Research Assistant for Dr. Yu Zhang from Spring 2015 till now. His research interests focus on Mining Massive Dataset.

Mr. Di Zhuang received Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science, and his second bachelor’s degree in Law both from Nankai University in Tianjin, China in 2013. He was a Ph.D. student in computer engineering at Iowa State University, Ames, IA between 2013 and 2016. In Fall 2016, he transferred to the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of South Florida, Tampa, FL with his adviser Dr. J. Morris Chang to continue his Ph.D. study. In Summer 2019 he worked as a Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr. Yu Zhang. His research interests include cyber security, social network science, privacy-enhancing & security technologies for machine learning and deep learning.

Ms. Rocio Frej Vitalle is currently a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF She joined USF in Spring 2018 and graduated in Summer 2019 with a Masters Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Since then, she has been pursuing her PhD assisting Dr. Yu Zhang with the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Vertical Takeoff and Landing Trajectories in Airport and Terminal Environments. Rocio has a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and works for CSSI Inc. as an Operations Research Analyst supporting the FAA. Her research in the area of enroute wake turbulence involves the analysis and investigation of collected aerodynamic and atmospheric data to validate and improve current wake turbulence models. She is also involved in the safety work of wake turbulence risks; including the implementation of wake turbulence mitigation strategies, analysis of Next-Gen departure scenarios for airport capacity increase, and research in the area of wake turbulence science in support of UAS integration into the NAS.

Mr. Rui Dai is currently a PhD Candidate in the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at the University of South Florida. He joined Dr. Zhang's group in Spring 2020 for the project on the Planning for Electrifying Transit Bus Systems. His research focuses on advancing the design, modeling and optimization for an energy trading or sharing system. He also works on developing algorithms for Mixed Integer Nonlinear Optimization and Multi-objective Optimization.

Mr. Vahid Mahmoodian is a Ph.D. candidate of Industrial Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF). He received a BS degree from Tabriz University, Tabriz, Iran and an MS degree from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran in Industrial Engineering. Before arriving at USF, he started a Ph.D. program at IUST, but he dropped out after two years and started it over at USF in 2017. During this time he worked on three main projects with different areas including social-responsible supply chain networks, cellular manufacturing, and intensity- modulated radiation therapy. Currently, he is focused on solving a specific class of non-linear optimization problems called multiplicative programming problems. Optimization of bike redistribution in free-floating bike sharing systems is another study that he is working on in SUM-Lab since Winter 2017. He also co-operated on developing an optimization framework that accelerates the query retrieval process in large-scale databases by batching the received queries.

Mrs. Tingting Zhao got her Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Technology at Tsinghua University (China) in 2012. She received her B.E. degree in Control Science and Technology at Hefei University of Technology (China) in 2006. She joined Dr. Yu Zhang's research group in 2017 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. Then, she joined the University of Maryland, College Park as an Assistant Research Scientist in 2019. Her area of interests are transportation system resilience, interdependent critical infrastructure resilience, and emerging transportation system design and operation, leveraging data mining, machine learning, mathematical programming, and transportation system modeling and simulation techniques.

Ms. Chao Ye got her bachelor and master degree from North China Electric Power University (Beijing,
China). She joined Dr. Yu Zhang’s research group in August 2019 and is currently pursuing her PhD
degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of South Florida, co-advised by Dr. Qiong
Zhang in Water Resource. Her research interests focus on resilience and interdependence study of road
transportation system and stormwater drainage system, i.e. infrastructure system design and simulation,
and applying some optimization methods to improve system performance.

Ms. Huang Feng is a Ph.D. student and a full-time teaching assistant in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at University of South Florida. She received bachelor’s degree in Southwest Jiaotong University(China), majoring in Transportation Engineering focused on high-speed train and urban railway field. She hold master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri Columbia and did some research about Transportation safety and Machine Learning. Her doctoral research covers Intelligent Transportation Systems, Air Transpiration and Transportation Safety. She takes multiple advanced machine learning and deep learning approaches to solve the transportation problems, with python, R, Matlab language.

Mr. Chunfu Xin is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Engineering at the University of South
Florida (USF). He got his M.S. degree in Highway and Railway Engineering from Southwest Jiao-tong
University (SWJTU) in 2014. He has been a research assistant in Dr. Zhang’s lab since December 2019.
His research interests include transportation safety, transportation infrastructure management, and
pavement engineering. His research goals for contributing to the transportation field are focusing on
promoting informed decisions about addressing sustainability-and-safety related issues in transportation
infrastructure and system management.

Ms. Sett Thiri Aung is currently pursuing an MSCE degree in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida. She graduated from West Yangon Technological University, Myanmar, with bachelor’s degrees in Civil Engineering in 2016. At present, Sett is working as a Graduate Assistant with Dr. Yu Zhang and helping the projects such as Performance Evaluation of e-Scooter sharing in the City of Tampa and Gender Analysis Tool for Complete Streets Policy Implementation. Her research interests relate to the development of intelligent transportation systems, transport sustainability, safety and reliability management, and railway engineering.

Ms. Yuan Xu is currently a second year graduate student pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Health with a concentration in Applied Biostatistics at the University of South Florida. She received her bachelor's degree in Biomedical Sciences in December 2017 at USF. Yuan joined Dr. Zhang's group in Fall 2018 as an assistant helping with projects and events. Her area of study is in public health and biostatistics focusing on statistical programs (SPSS, SAS, R) and data analysis.

Mr. Borui Liu is currently a fourth year undergraduate student from the Civil Aviation University of China and is majoring in Air Traffic Control. His area of interest is in flight time optimization. Borui joined Dr. Yu Zhang's Lab in January as an intern and plans to focus on air traffic management.

Mr. Mammadkhan Haziyev is an undergraduate civil engineering student at the University of South Florida. He graduated from the Dayanat Turkish Lyceum in Azerbaijan in 2018. He joined Dr. Yu Zhang’s team in February 2020. His research interests are transportation visualization and street road designs. During leisure time he likes to play in the pool, spend time with his dog and travel.

Ms. Selena Ragoobar is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Structural Engineering at the University of South Florida. As of Spring 2020, she joined NetTS Transportation Lab group working as a research assistant for Dr. Yu Zhang on developing a gender analysis tool for complete street policy and implementation for the e-scooter project. Her research interests include machine learning, sustainability in structural engineering, and productivity analysis in terms of construction project management. She is also involved in management and entrepreneurship working in both construction management and real estate. On her leisure time she is a player for the University of South Florida’s Women’s Rugby Team and likes to travel.

Visiting Scholars

Dr. Rong Hu is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Civil Aviation at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA). He visits Dr. Zhang’s research group from Dec. 2017 to Dec. 2018. He obtained his B.E. and Ph.D. in Management at the NUAA in 2003 and 2010. His research interests include (1) airport operation and environmental protection, (2) analysis and optimization of civil aviation economics. He supported by National Science Foundation of China, Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, etc. He is also a member of Chinese Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, proposal reviewer for National Science Foundation of China, Transportation Research Part E, Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, Journal of Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, etc.

Dr. Junfeng ZHANG works at USF as a visiting scholar under the supervision of Dr. Yu ZHANG from Dec. 2017 to Dec. 2018. He is currently an Associate Professor in College of Civil Aviation at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He obtained his Ph.D. in Automation at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2008. His research interests include (1) 4D Trajectory Generation, Prediction and Optimization; (2) Decision Support Tool (DST) for the Air Traffic Control, like AMAN, DMAN and the integration of AMAN/DMAN. These researches are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, the Boeing Company or the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd..

Dr. Yafei Li received his Ph.D. at Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS in Geography Information System in 2012. He obtained his M.S. degree in resource management from Beijing Normal University, China in July 2009 and his B.S. degree in Geography Information System in 2006 from Henan University. His primary research interests are the air traffic management, flight procedure design and transportation and land use.

Dr. Quan Shao is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Civil Aviation at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He visits Dr. Zhang’s research group from Jan. 2016 to Jan. 2017. He obtained her B.E. and M.S. in Safety Engineering at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2003 and 2006. He obtained her Ph.D. in Engineering at the Tsinghua University in 2009. His research interests include (1) intelligent decision system, and (2) transportation networking analysis. Application fields of research are (1) emergency decision support system, supported by NSF of China and Foundation of Ministry of Education of China; (2) flight delay propagation analysis, supported by NSF of China and NSF of Jiangsu and (3) civil aviation emergency event pre-warning and decision making, supported by NSF of China and NSF of Jiangsu. He also is a member of Chinese Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, proposal reviewer for National Science Foundation, Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University, Journal of Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, etc.

Dr Ming Zhang is associate professor of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Nanjing, China). As a visiting scholar of USF, he visit Dr. Zhang’s research group from Aug.2014 to Aug.2015.He obtained his B.E. in mechanical engineering in 1997 from NUAA. He obtained his master degree and Ph.D. in 2003 and 2010 from NUAA.His research interests focus on dynamic airspace configuration, airspace and airfield capacity and delay, and general aviation rescue system in air transportation.

Dr. Xinmin Tang is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Civil Aviation at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the Harbin Institute of Technology in 2007. His research interests include (1) Petri Net and Discrete Event Dynamic System theory; (2) Hybrid System Theory. Application fields of research are (1) Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System, supported by NSF of China and Foundation of Ministry of Education of China; (2) Next generation of air traffic control automation system, supported by NSF of China and NSF of Jiangsu ; (3) Runway Incursion Prevention System, supported by NSF of China and NSF of Jiangsu. All these research are supported by National Science Foundation of China and 2 Science Foundation of China Jiangsu. He is authorized two national patents named "A-SMGCS based on DEDS controller" and "ATC System based on 4D TBO" respectively. He won the Outstanding Young Teachers honorary title in "Jiangsu Province Qing-Lan" Program in 2012 and became host of Talent of Jiangsu Province “Six Talent Peaks” in 2013.He also is a member of Chinese Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics, proposal reviewer for National Science Foundation, external manuscript reviewer for Journal of Transportation Engineering, Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University, Journal of Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, etc.

Yigang Huang is currently a Lecturer of Civil Aviation University of China. He obtained his B.E. in Air Traffic Management at CAUC in 2002. He obtained his master degree in Air Traffic Flow Management at CAUC in 2010. As a visiting scholar of USF, he visit Dr. Zhang’s research group from Sep. 2015 to MAR. 2016. His research interests include (1) air traffic controller performance evaluation; (2) airport and airspace capacity assessment; (3) aviation safety.

Mrs. Mei Tao is a lecturer in Air Traffic Management College of Civil Aviation University of China (CAUC). She got her bachelor of Mechatronics Engineering and master of Mechanical Manufacturing and Automation from Hebei University of Technology (China). She worked as a visitor scholar with Dr. Yu Zhang in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of South Florida (USF) from Mar 2019 to Mar 2020. Her research interests include airspace management and air traffic optimization and management.

Mr. Yue Yang graduated from Tianjin University and got his PH. D degree in the major of Measuring and Metrological Technology and Instrument. He joined Professor Zhang Yu’s team in 2019 as a visiting scholar for one year. Currently he teaches in the Civil Aviation University of China and works as an instructor for Air Traffic Controllers’(ATCOs) basic training. His main research contains the Human Reliability Analysis method in Air Traffic Management and the quantitative assessment method of the ATCOs’ performance.

Mr. Xiangling Zhao is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Air Traffic Management at Civil Aviation University of China and is pursing his Ph.D. degree in College of Information Science and Engineering at Northeastern University. He joined Dr. Zhang’s research group from Dec.2018 to Dec.2019 as a visiting scholar. He obtained his M.E degree in Aircraft Design at Beijing Institute of Technology in 2006. His research interests include flight operation, aircraft weight and balance, and airport surface operation.

Dr. Yiyong Pan is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Automobile and Transportation Engineering at Nanjing Forestry University (NJFU). He joined Dr. Zhang’s research group from Feb. 2020 to Jan. 2021. He obtained his B.E. in Applied Mathematics at Anhui University in China in 2002. He obtained his M.S. in Operation Research and Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering at Southeast University in China in 2009 and 2014. His research
interests include (1) Shortest path problem in stochastic and dynamic traffic network, (2) Data mining to improve traffic stream models, (3) Lagrangian relaxation algorithm for optimization problem. These researches are supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province.

Students Graduated

Dr. Hongyun Chen is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the USF in 2010. Prior to her join at ERAU, Dr. Chen worked at CUTR since 2007 and has actively performed the researches in the area of highway safety and geometric designs. She received the certifications from FDOT for the "Excellent in Team Award" for Florida Motorcycle Safety Coalition and Minority Task Force on Occupant Protection. She was also the recipient of "Georgia Brosch Memorial Transportation Scholarship" from CUTR in 2010, and the "Helene M. Overly Transportation Scholarship" from WTS in 2011, and several competition winners from ITE and STC. During her graduate study, she led the USF ITE student chapter from 2007 to 2009 and CSSA from 2008 to 2011. Her research interests include transportation safety, highway geometric design, traffic operation, signal timing control, incident management, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and statistical modeling in highway safety.

Dr. Nagesh Nayak obtained his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at USF in 2012. He joined USF in August 2008 after he obtained his B.E. in Civil Engineering from University of Mumbai in India. His research interests include airport management, air traffic flow management, transportation planning and transportation network modeling. He was a research assistant for Professor Yu Zhang from Fall 2008 to Sprin 2010. Since last year, he has worked at CUTR as a Research Assistant with Dr. Sissinio Concas on the TRIMMS model. Nagesh has got three research papers published, and the fourth has been submitted recently. Nagesh, together with his major advisor, Professor Yu Zhang, received the Fred Burggraf Award presented by Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, which recognizes excellence in transportation research by researchers 35 years of age or younger. Nagesh is also a recipient of the Graduate Research Award from Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) for annual year 2009-2010, won ITS Florida - Anne Brewer Shanklin Scholarship Award in 2009 and 2011 and CUTR Georgia Brosch Award in 2011. Besides exceptional academic performance, Nagesh also participates actively in student organizations. He was the President of ITE Student Chapter at USF in 2009 and the President of Students of India Association in 2010. He is also a part of USF sports team at American College Cricket tournaments.He is currently working at Citi as an analyst.

Dr. Bing Huang obtained his B.S. in Computer Science in 2005 from Nanjing University of Technology in China. He obtained his M.S. in Civil Engineering in 2008 from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering with concentration in transportation in May 2012 from University of South Florida. His research interests focus on traffic safety and operations, traffic micro-simulation and calibration, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), highway crash analysis, data management in transportation engineering, and statistical modeling in transportation. His research work has been presented at national conferences and published in several transportation journals. His Ph.D. dissertation topic is ¡°Understanding Operating Speed Variation of Multilane Highways with New Access Density Definition and Simulation Outputs¡±. He worked as a lecturer at Department of Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies in Morgan State University and now is a traffic engineer at Century Engineering, Inc.

Mr. Jacob Mirabella got his Bachelor and M.S. degrees from Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Jacob interned at Kisinger Campo & Associates in 2011 and joined Dr. Zhang¡¯s research group in February 2012. His primary interest is the promotion of sustainable transportation through intersection efficiency, renewable energy, and mass transit. Mr. Mirabella is now working as a traffic engineer at Albeck Gerken, Inc.

Dr. Qing Wang got her bachelor degree at Tongji University (Shanghai, China) in 2009. She then joined USF and got her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Duringthe years at USF, she worked with Dr. Yu Zhang on projects sponsored by FAA, emphasizing on airfield performance metrics development. Qing's dissertation work developed a real-time integrated optimization tools for airpor airfield operations management (RTI-ASOM). She is now working at Apple Inc. on production capacity management.

Dr. An, Yu received his bachelor degree in 2006 and his master’s degree in 2008 from the TianJin University, TianJin, China. He was co-advised by Dr. Zhang and Dr. Zeng and worked on reliable network design. He is currently working as a post-doc in public health domain.

Dr. Rui Guo obtained her bachelor degree in transportation engineering at Southeast University (Nanjing, China) in 2008. She then worked at Southeast University as the research assistant on safety assessment of bridge structure and highway roads. Rui joined Dr. Yu Zhang's research group in August 2010 and got her master's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF in 2011. She later joined Albeck Gerken, Inc. as an intern focusing on Synchro modeling and data analysis in traffic signal retiming projects. Her research interests focus on Sustainable Traffic Signal Optimization, Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), Infrastructure Safety Assessment, Data Mining and Computer Programming and Simulation. Rui graduated with a Ph.D. degree from USF in May 2015 and worked as a research associate in the ITS and Safety program at Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) from 2015 to 2016. She then moved to Texas Tech University and worked as an instructor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering from 2017 to 2019. Rui recently moved back to Florida and is a lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education at the UF Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. She currently teaches transportation courses for engineers.

Dr. Nikhil Menon is currently a doctoral student in the Civil & Environmental Engineering department at USF. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut (India) and a master’s degree in Transportation Systems from the MIT Portugal Program (Tecnico Lisboa). He has also worked as a Transport Planner at the Centre For infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation & Urban Planning (CiSTUP), Bangalore (India) for a period of 4 months, before joining USF in Fall ‘13. Menon is currently working as a graduate research assistant under Dr. Yu Zhang and Dr. Abdul Pinjari researching on self-driving cars and travel behavior. He is also working as a Writing Consultant at the USF Writing Studio, Nikhil serves as the President of the USF Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), Student Chapter.

Dr. Aritra Pal got his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from BESU, Shibpur ( India ) in 2011. He then worked as an assistant manager in Coal India Limited for 2 years. Since Fall, 2013, Aritra is pursuing his Ph.D.
degree in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at USF. He is co-advised by Dr. Zhang and Dr. Kwon and is currently working on Bike Sharing Systems. His research interests are developing approximation algorithms for solving routing and network design problems.

Mrs. Natalia Barbour is currently pursuing a PhD degree in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF. She joined USF in August 2015. She has graduated with her Bachelors in Physics from Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). She got her Master's Degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she was a Graduate Research Assistant and served as the President of the UAB Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE) Student Chapter. She was also involved in community outreach and conducted workshops to introduce the area of engineering through hands on activities to middle school girls and young children. During her master’s she used GIS spatial analysis tool to research food desserts in the state of Alabama and her work was published in Athens Journal of Health (2014). Currently she is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and working on determining her dissertation topic. She has interests in sustainable transportation systems, public transit and freeway operations.

Mr. Ali Shamansouri is currently an M.S. student in civil and environmental engineering at the University of
South Florida. He earned his bachelor of civil and environmental engineering from the Amirkabir
University of Technology, Iran in 2017. Motivated by Dr. Zhang’s research areas and passionate group,
Ali joined her research group in January 2018 and is currently working with Dr. Zhao. His research
interests include traffic simulation and modeling, traffic management and sustainable transportation.

Ms. Yuan Wang got her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at Changsha University of Science & Technology (Changsha, China) in 2010, and obtained her master’s degree in Transportation Engineering concentrated on
pavement mechanical analysis at Southeast University (Nanjing, China) in 2013. She then worded as an urban road
and highway designer in Beijing Municipal Road & Bridge Construction Holding (Group) Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China).Yuan
joined Dr. Yu Zhang's research group in January, 2015 and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF. Her research interests focus on airport performance and air traffic management.

Mr. Makarand Gawade is currently pursuing PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF. He joined USF in January 2010. His research interests include transportation network analysis, travel demand modeling and
transportation sustainability. He received his Bachelors in Civil Engineering from University of Mumbai in 2008. He has
worked as a graduate research assistant and teaching assistant with Dr. Yu Zhang. His paper, "Where to launch a new
passenger air route between U.S and China" won the best paper award at ICRAT2012. He has also worked as a
research assistant in CUTR with Dr. Achilleas Kourtellis on projects related to pedestrian safety. His dissertation topic
is related to quantifying performance of multimodal public transit networks. His expected date of graduation is
December 2015.