Dr. Kockelman's Fabuluous Co-Pilots
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CE367 Design Class Thank You to sponsors (March 2017)

Current Graduate Students

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.

 

 

Undergraduate Students:

Many undergraduate students have worked & are working on research projects under Dr. Kockelman's supervision.  These include Jugal Amodwala, Albert Coleman, Caroline Leonard, James Lentz, Devin Wilkins, Jeffrey Hahm, Mike Hernandez, Tejas Choudhary, Ruohan Li, Lewis Clements, Aqshems Nichols, Scott Schauer-West, Kevin Pappas, Zelleny Lozano, Brad Caponigro, Matt Reiter, Rydell Walthall, Brice Nichols, Jonathan Lumang, Jay Chmilewski, Amy Neskar, Joy Chen, Anne Hulsey, Andrea Debee, Charlotte Whitehead, Matt Bomberg, Melissa Thompson, Robin Lynch, Kristin Donnelly, Travis Dunn, Mike Reyes, Iris Lin, Alexander Marks, Curtis Bouldin, Renee Pean, Daisy Esquivel, Jeff Easton, Victor Long, Atul Magoon, and Sze Ki (Silky) Wong.

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.

 

 

Past Graduate Students (& Post-doctoral fellows) - and their new coordinates...

Mr. Louis Alcorn

MS Civil Engineering, 2020
Engineer, MSP, Portland, OR
loualcorn@utexas.edu

Mr. Prateek Bansal

MS Civil Engineering
PhD at Cornell
Professor, National University of Singapore
prateekbansaliitdelhi@gmail.com

Ms. Michelle Bina

MS Civil Engineering, 2005
Cambridge Systematics, Oakland, CA 94607
beachseashell@hotmail.com

Dr. Donna Chen

PhD Civil Engineering, 2015
Assistant Professor of CE, University of Virginia
chen.donna@gmail.com

Ms. Patricia Delgado

MS Civil Engineering, 2004
pdelgado@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Dan Fagnant

MS & PhD Civil Engineering, 2011 & 2014
Senior Artificial Intelligence Computer Scientist at General Motors
Formerly Assstant Professor of CE at University of Utah
danfagnant@gmail.com

Dr. Fatemeh Fakhrmoosavi

Post-doctoral Fellow, 2021-2022
University of Connecticut, CT
moosavi@austin.utexas.edu

Mr. Christopher Frazier

MS Civil Engineering, 2004
PB Consult (Planner II), Alberquerque, NM 87109
frazierc@pbworld.com

Mr. Shashank Chowdary Gadda

MS Civil Engineering, 2006
Credit policy/Risk Analyist
HSBC Card Services, Salinas, CA
shashankgc@gmail.com

Ms. Surabhi Gupta

MS Civil Engineering, 2005
PB, San Francisco
surabhi.g@gmail.com

Dr. Krishna Murthy Gurumurthy

MS  PhD Transportation Engineering, 2017, 2021
Argonne National Lab, IL
gkmurthy10@gmail.com

Ms. Shadi Hakimi

MS Civil Engineering, 2005
URS Greiner, Austin TX
shadi_hakimi@yahoo.com

Dr. Jason Hawkins

Post-doctoral Fellow, 2021-2022
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
jason.hawkins@unl.edu

Mr. Jared Heiner

MS Civil Engineering, 2003
HNTB, Austin, TX
jheiner@htnb.com

Dr. Kai Huang

Post-doctoral Fellow, 2020-2022
Southeast University, China
kai.huang@utexas.edu

Dr. Yantao Huang

PhD Civil Engineering, 2021
National Renewable Energy Laboratoy, CO
yantao.h@utexas.edu

Mr. Christian Hunter

MS Civil Engineering, 2021
AECOM, Washtington , D.C.
christianhunter@utexas.edu

Ms. Ling Jin

MS Civil Engineering, 2003
Hexagon Transportation Consultant, San Jose, CA
ljin@hextrans.com

Mr. Siva Karthik Kakaraparthi

MS Civil Engineering, 2009
HSBC Bank, Chicago, IL
sivakarthik19@gmail.com

Mr. Mobashwir (Moby) Khan

MS Civil Engineering, 2012
Cambridge Systematics, Oakland, CA
mobashwir@gmail.com

Mr. Sriram Krishnamurthy

MS Civil Engineering, 2003
Tiger Analytics, Chennai, India
sriram_k@mailcity.com

Mr. Saurabh Kumar

MS Civil Engineering, 2007
Cambridge Systematics, Austin, TX
saurabhsingh@gmail.com

Mr. Sukumar Kalmanje

MS Civil Engineering (& MPA), 2005
KPMG, San Francisco, CA
sukumar@gmail.com

Dr. Young-Jun Kweon

PhD Civil Engineering, 2004
USDOT's NHTSA's Office of Regulatory Analysis & Evaluation (ORAE)
yngjnkweon@yahoo.com

Dr. Jooyong Lee

PhD Civil Engineering, 2021
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Seoul National University, South Korea
jylee3302@gmail.com

Dr. Jason Lemp

PhD Civil Engineering, 2009
Cambridge Systematics, Austin, TX
lemp5000@yahoo.com

Dr. Jun Liu

Post-doctoral Fellow, 2016-2017
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL
junliu1234@gmail.com

Mr. Ben Loeb

MS Civil Engineering, 2016
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Comission (MPO), Philadelphia, PN
benloeb@utexas.edu

Dr. Jianming Ma

PhD Civil Engineering, 2006
Texas Department of Transportation, Austin, TX
mjming@utexas.edu

Mr. Haonan Yan

MS Civil Engineering, 2019
Province of Jiangaxi Department of Transportation. Jiangxi, China
yanhnan@utexas.edu

Ms. Laura McWethy

MS Civil Engineering, 2006
Cambridge Systematics, Inc., Bethesda, MD 20814
lmcwethy@gmail.com

Mr. Sashank Musti

MS Civil Engineering, 2010
Cambridge Systematics, Inc., Oakland, CA
sashankmnm@gmail.com

Mr. Brice Nichols

MS Civil Engineering, 2013
Portland Sound Regional Council (PRSC), Seattle, WA
bricenichols@gmail.com

Mr. Adam Nodjomian

MS Civil Engineering, 2018
Alliance Transportation Group, Austin, TX
anodjomian@utexas.edu

Mr. Binny Paul

MS Civil Engineering, 2011
PB, New York City, NY
binnympaul@gmail.com

Ms. Kathe Podgorski

MS Civil Engineering, 2005
PBS&J, Austin, TX
kvpodgorski@pbsj.com

Mr. Neil Quarles

MS Civil Engineering, 2017
City of Austin Transportation Department, Austin, TX
neilquarles@utexas.edu

Mr. Anant Pradhan

MS Civil Engineering, 2002
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
University of Chicago Business School
Deceased, January 2007 (We Miss you, Anant!!)

Ms. Jamie Reckinger

MS Civil Engineering, 2005
Kimley-Horn and Associates, Austin, TX
jamiereck@gmail.com

Ms. Natalia Ruiz-Juri

MS Civil Engineering, 2004 (PhD 2008)
Research Associate, Center for Transportation Research, Austin, TX
nruizjari@mail.utexas.edu

Mr. Brent Selby

MS Civil Engineering, 2011
Cambridge Systematics, Chicago, IL
brent.selby@gmail.com

Mr. Raheel Shabih

MS Civil Engineering, 1999
Port Authority of New York-New Jersey
rshabih@panynj.gov

Mr. Brian ten Siethoff

MS Civil Engineering, 2001
Cambridge Systematics, Inc., New York, NY
bts@camsys.com

Dr. Sivaramakrishnan Srinivasan

MS Civil Engineering, 2000 (PhD, 2004)
Assistant Professor, The University of Florida, Gainsville
siva@ce.ufl.edu

Dr. Issam Srour

MS Civil Engineering, 2002
PhD in Construction Engineering & Project Mgmt., 2005
Assistant Professor, Engineering Management Graduate Program, The American University of Beirut, Lebanon
isrour@hotmail.com

Ms. Sumala Tirumalachetty

MS Civil Engineering, 2009
Centre for Emerging Markets Solutions
Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India
sumalat@gmail.com

Dr. Cara (Xiaokun) Wang

PhD Civil Engineering, 2007
Assistant Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY
wangxiaokun@gmail.com

Dr. Yiyi Wang

PhD Civil Engineering, 2013
Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University (SFSU)
yiyiwang@sfsu.edu

Ms. Tyler Wellik

MS Civil Engineering, 2019
Engineer at General Motors, Austin, TX
tywellik@umich.edu

Ms. Xiaoxia Xiong

MS Civil Engineering, 2012
Lecturer, School of Automotive and Traffic Engineering, Jiangsu University, China
summerholidy623@gmail.com

Dr. Yong Zhao

PhD Civil Engineering, 2003
Sr. Transportation Planner, Jacobs Engineering, Austin, TX
yzhao1@yahoo.com

Dr. Brenda (Bin) Zhou

PhD Civil Engineering, 2009
Assistant Professor, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT
zhoubin@mail.ccsu.edu

Dr. Natalia Zuniga-Garcia

PhD Civil Engineering, 2020
Argonne National Lab, IL
nzuniga@utexas.edu

Gallery

Scott Kilgore, Yawei He, Yantao Huang and Murthy Krishnamurthy at TRB 2017
Back row, left to right: Jason Lemp, Shashank Gadda, Brenda Zhou, Laura Mcwehty, and Zheng Li.
Front row, left to right: Annette Perrone (admin. assoc.), Stephen Boyles, Tian Huang and Jianming Ma
Cara Wang
Racquetball tournament at Gregory Gym
Flag Football Champs with Xiaokun Du and Xiaoxia Xiong (Nov. 2010)
Students on Lamar Bridge during bike ride.
Kara Kockelman and Dr. Jun Liu at TRB 2017
Jun Kweon, Issam Sour, Ling Jin, Yong Zhao, and Kara Kockelman (2000)
Jianming Ma
Peter Pan miniature golf outing
Kara Kockelman and graduate students enjoying a socially-distanced taco fest at Eastwoods Park
Standing, left to right: Brent Selby, Binny Paul, Sashank Musti, Jason Lemp, and Dan Fagnant. Seated, left to right: Yiyi Wang, Kara Kockelman, and Sumala Tirumalachetty
Kara Kockelman, Sukumar Kalmanje, Steve Rosen, Jianming Ma
Yiyi Wang and son Aaron
Enjoying Mangia's pizza at Peter Pan minigolf
Donna Chen, Jian Xu, Kara Kockelman, and Brice Nichols at UT's Underground Bowling Alley (Nov. 2012)
Students ready to start biking Shoal Creek.
Dan Fagnant and Kara Kockelman on UT Breezeway for Daily Texan Article on shared autonomous vehicles (April 2014)
Standing, left to right: Surabhi Gupta, David Suescun, Shashank Gadda, Pradeep Gulipalli, Jianming Ma, Xiaokun Wang, Michelle Bina, Brenda Zhoue, Sukumar Kalmanje, and Jamie Reckinger. Seated, left to right: Shadi Hakimi, Jun Kweon, Kara Kockelman, Kaethe Podgorski (2005)
Binny Paul, Moby Khan, Shoupeng Tang, Tim Dietrich, and Dan Fagnant chowing down at Double Dave's Pizza
Xiaoxia Xiong, Yiyi Wang, Kara Kockelman, Aria Berliner, Donna Chen (seated), and Dan Fagnant (2012)
Saurabh Kumar, Rui Gao, Jason Lemp, Takuya Maruyama, Brenda Zhou, Father of Xiaokun Wang, Zheng Li, Mother of Xiaokun Wang, Xiaokun Wang, Kara Kockelman, Natalia Ruiz-Juri, Steve Boyles, Jared Heiner, Varun Valsaraj, Shadi Hakimi (May 2007) (photo includes graduates, friends, and family)

Online videos: https://vimeo.com/167300764 (USDOT Fast Forward interview regarding autonomous vehicle capabilities & benefits, January 2016)