Kathleen Diaz Carrasquillo was selected as the UTRC Student of the Year for 2002. She was honored at the 12th Annual Student of the Year Awards at TRB. Currently Kathleen is finishing her masters degree at the University of Puerto Rico Mayag?ez. In 1996 she began her undergraduate studies in civil engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Bayam?n Campus. In 1998 Kathleen was awarded an Associate Degree in Science of Engineering and received the department medal for the highest GPA. In this year she transferred to the University of Puerto Rico, Mayag?ez Campus (UPRM) to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (BSCE). During this period as an undergraduate student Kathleen had her first professional experience working with the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA) as an engineering student in training. In addition, she participated in several transportation research projects in the planning area performing a network simulation to compare different levels of details. In 2001 she worked in a summer internship in Transportation at the University of Texas at Austin where she created an application using Visual Basic to integrate the capabilities of two planning tools. In May 2002, Kathleen graduated from UPRM Magna Cum Laude receiving her BSCE. In January 2002 Kathleen began her graduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayag?ez Campus where she is currently working on a research project associated with the highway safety, identification of hazardous location and road safety audit. Dr. Benjam?n Colucci is her academic advisor at the graduate program in Transportation in UPRM.