Sandeep Mudigonda, received the NJDOT Research Showcase award at the 2006 NJDOT Research Showcase. Sandeep received his undergraduate degree in CEE from IIT Madras in India which is the top Civil Engineering program in India. He joined Rutgers University in 2003 and received his MS degree in the Fall of 2006 under the guidance of Professor Kaan Ozbay. He is currently a first year Ph.D. Student in the CEE program at Rutgers University.
Li Chen is a Transportation Program doctoral student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the University Transportation Research Center Region II, City College of New York. She holds a B.S. in Transportation Management and a M.S. in Computer Science from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in China. She also holds a M.S. in Transportation Engineering from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alabama.
Through the Academic Initiative, Li Chen worked on the West Side Manhattan Traffic and Transportation Study at NYCDOT, where she was supervised by Michael Griffith. This study examined traffic, pedestrian, bicycle and goods movement, safety, and land use issues in a rapidly evolving area on the edge of the region’s central business district. She was involved in many different aspects of this project, including organizing public outreach meetings and data collection activities, and analyzing changes in the area’s demography, traffic, and land uses.
For her independent research project, Wei Li studied transportation services for the region’s aging population. She gathered data on the characteristics of transit services for seniors in Westchester County through interviews and data analysis. Her research was supervised by her academic advisor, Professor Cynthia Chen, and by Joel Ettinger, Executive Director of NYMTC, who also served as her professional advisor. Her report was titled: “A Typology of Senior Transportation Services in Westchester County.”
Through the Academic Initiative, Jeevanjot Singh conducted research on time-of-day pricing strategies for the Westchester County Bee-Line System transit network. Her study’s purpose was to produce realistic demand and cost functions that could be used by Westchester County to develop better transit policies for elderly and disabled populations. Her report, “Variable Fares for Elderly and Handicapped Transit Riders: An Analysis of Westchester County,” explored alternatives with variable fare options for peak and off peak periods.
David Dayu Zhang worked with NYMTC staff to research key transportation issues facing the region and to plan regional conferences to address these issues. Under the guidance of NYMTC Executive Director Joel Ettinger, he examined four critical areas related to NYMTC’s shared regional vision: Bus Rapid Transit; safe routes to school; Transit-Oriented Development; and transit for older adults.
Eugene Sit was born and raised in New York City, which may have helped instill in him a wide-ranging curiosity about all things urban. At Columbia University, where he was a C. Prescott Davis Scholar, he supplemented his Civil Engineering courses with ones on transportation and urban development, architecture and planning, politics, and anthropology. He received his Bachelor of Science degree with a departmental citation in 2002. Soon after graduation, Eugene found himself in the employ of Vollmer Associates, LLP as a Junior Engineer in the transportation department.
