Dr. Kockelman's Fabuluous Co-Pilots
- Past & Present, at Work & Play

Balasubramanian Sambasivam, Post-doctorate Research Fellow
balasubramaniansa@austin.utexas.edu

Balasubramanian (Bala) Sambasivam received his B.Tech (Hons.) in mechatronics from SASTRA University, India, in May 2009, M.Sc. in renewable energy from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, in January 2014, and his PhD. in energy policy from Indian Institute of Science, India, in January 2020. He joined Dr. Kockelman’s research group as a postdoc in November 2021. His research focuses on evaluating the impact of EV charging in the electricity system and simulating the TNC competition of SAVs. More information about his research can be found on the following website.

Matt Dean, PhD Student
mattdean@utexas.edu

Matt Dean received his B.S. in Civil Engineering and minor in Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia in May 2019 and joined Dr. Kockelman's team upon entering the program in August 2019. Matt became interested in a research career after working as an undergrad RA in seemingly every area of transportation (innovative concretes, crash analysis, public transit agency perceptions of TNCs and AVs, virtual reality testing for non-motorized modes). He received his M.S.E. in Civil Engineering in December 2020 with his thesis focusing on spatial variation in shared ride-hailing trips. His area of interest at UT Austin is in travel demand modeling and forecasting impacts of shared autonomous electric vehicles with an emphasis on integrating energy perspectives in transportation systems. Matt has his EIT and is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) Fellow. More information about his research can be found on the following website.

Lin Su, PhD Student
sulin@utexas.edu

Lin Su received her B.E. in Civil Engineering from the Shandong University of Science and Technology in June 2020 and her M.S. from the University of Florida in May 2022. She joined Dr. Kockelman's research group while working on obtaining her Ph.D. in August 2022. Her research area is shared autonomous electric vehicles (SAEVs) and she is currently working on the co‐location of public & private charging stations for Cruise's new SAEVs in the Austin area. Her research interests also include shared micromobilities, transportation equity, and the applications of machine learning.

Ahmad Yehia, PhD Student
ahmad.yehia@gmail.com

Ahmad has infinite curiosity about technology, and finds inspiration in connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) - with emphasis on social acceptance for adoption of less unsustainable modes. He earned his Master's degree in Transportation Engineering from Shanghai’s Tongji University in August 2022, where his thesis (on crash risk analysis for active traffic management) won an Outstanding Thesis Award. His current research assignment is on the long-distance travel impacts of AVs (including ATrucks) for the Texas Department of Transportation.

Priyanka Paithankar, PhD Student
priyanka.paithankar@utexas.edu

Priyanka Paithankar has received her BE in Civil Engineering from MIT, Pune and MTech degree in transportation engineering from IIT Bombay in 2017 and 2019, respectively. After receiving her master's degree, she worked as a traffic engineer in a transportation consultancy firm called Dar Al Handasah. She began her doctoral studies at UT Austin in August 2021. Her research area includes Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and is currently researching long distance trips in the USA with AVs.

Phillip Ayebare, MS Student
p.ayebare44@gmail.com

Phillip Ayebare received his BS in Civil Engineering from University of Cape Town in March 2020. He worked in Uganda in engineering consultancy for 12 months before joining Dr Kockelman’s research group for his Masters degree in January 2022. His current research interest is in travel demand modelling and shared autonomous vehicle fleet operation details.

Maithreyi Vellimana, MS Student
maithreyi.vellimana@utexas.edu

Maithreyi Vellimana received her BE in Civil Engineering from University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2017. She has an E.I.T and worked as a traffic engineer at WSP USA before joining the transportation program at UT Austin for her Master’s degree in Spring 2021. Her current research area includes travel demand modelling and long distance trips in the US with autonomous vehicles.

Nayoon Heo, MS Student
nyheo210@gmail.com

Nayoon Heo is a MS student in Civil Engineering at UT Austin. She received her BS in Civil Engineering from KAIST, Republic of Korea. Prior to coming to UT, she led a team to plan the national pilot smart city project in Korea.

Jahnavi Malagavalli, MS Student
jahnavimalagavalli@utexas.edu

Jahnavi Malagavalli is an MS student in Computer Science at UT Austin. She received her BS in Computer Science and Engineering from Mahindra Ecole Centrale, India. She is working on using computer vision and other AI/ML techniques to infer speed, plate number, and other details from cell-phone videos of moving vehicles, to identify dangerous behaviors. Prior to coming to UT, she lead a team of 9 people at Wipro for a year, doing data extraction, validation, and analysis.

Maizy Jeong, BS Student
maizyjeong@utexas.edu

Maizy Jeong is a second-year undergraduate student at UT Austin. She is studying Environmental Science and will graduate in May of 2023. She was born and raised in Northern California and joined Dr. Kockelman's team as an administrative assistant in January 2020. During the school year, she also enjoys being a Radio DJ at the university's radio station.

Eric McDonnell, BS Student
ericseanmcd@yahoo.com

Eric McDonnell is a sophomore studying Civil Engineering at the University of Texas, expecting to graduate in May 2025. Raised in Augusta, Maine, he joined Dr. Kockelman’s team to work on the Good Systems Being Watched project in October 2022, working with AI image detection and tracking. He is currently interested in transportation engineering and looks forward to being a part of further research.