The Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development & Education Center (STRIDE) is the
2016 Region 4 (Southeast) U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Center
Research
STRIDE Year 2 Projects
The STRIDE Center has funded 18 new projects which began in fall 2018. To view all STRIDE projects, including a list of the cost share projects, click on the link below.

STRIDE Project Spotlight:

Older Driver Experiences with Autonomous Vehicle Technology

Lead PI: Dr. Sherrilene Classen,
University of Florida
UF’s Institute for Mobility, Activity, and Participation, under the leadership of Dr. Sherrilene Classen, is collaborating with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, under the leadership of Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku, and with support from the City of Gainesville, to understand the perception, beliefs, and attitudes of older drivers (≥ 65 years) as they relate to emerging autonomous vehicle technology.

STRIDE Project Spotlight:

Developing a Course on Understanding Relationships Between the Built Environment, Physical Activity, Public Health, Urban Mobility, &Traffic Congestion

Lead PI: Dr. Dimitra Michalaka, The Citadel (Co-PI: Dr. Jeff Davis, The Citadel)
The purpose of the project is to create a graduate level course that focuses on the built environment, related aspects of urban mobility and its impacts on public health. The course will provide students in transportation engineering, city planning, public health, physical activity, landscape architecture, and public administration with foundational knowledge of the effects of transportation infrastructure on health, as well as traffic congestion.

STRIDE Project Spotlight:

Comparing Ride-Sharing Adoption Trends and Perspectives of Consumers from two Generational Cohorts - Millennials and Gen X'ers

Lead PI: Dr. Abhinav Alakshendra,
University of Florida
Dr. Abhinav Alakshendra is leading a project at the University of Florida (UF) along with Dr. Ruth Steiner (also at UF) and Dr. Allie Thomas from the City and Regional Planning Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The project looks into understanding travel behaviors of two age-cohorts in the United States: the Millennials and the Generation X’ers.

Faculty & Post Doc Spotlights
Dr. Kari Watkins is the Frederick Law Olmsted Associate Professor in Civil Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In this video, she discusses her research in multi-modal transportation planning, the use of technology and more. Dr. Watkins is leading two STRIDE funded projects.

Dr. Ossama Ramadan is a post doctoral fellow in the Transportation Engineering and Development Lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Ramadan discusses his research on traffic modeling and simulation, transportation performance measurement, mobility as a service (MaaS), intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and transportation data analytics. He serves as a co-PI on two STRIDE funded projects.

Education
Congratulations to STRIDE Student of the Year! M. Shoaib Samandar (NCSU)
Congratulations to M. Shoaib Samandar, a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University, for being selected as the 2018 STRIDE Center's Student of the Year. Shoaib will receive his award during the 96th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Meeting at the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) annual awards banquet on January 12, 2019 at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. We will be reporting more on Shoaib and the awards ceremony in the Spring 2019 newsletter.
2018 STRIDE Student of the Year, M. Shoaib Samandar
The Student of the Year Award is given to a student at each University Transportation Center who demonstrates strength in areas such as technical merit and research, academic performance, professionalism, and leadership.
A Snapshot of STRIDE-Affiliated Students
Leila Azizi is a doctoral student working on a STRIDE funded project titled “Performance Measurement and Management using Connected and Automated Vehicle Data.”

Ishtiak Ahmed is a doctoral student at North Carolina State University. His interest in transportation engineering has roots in mobility and safety issues on the roads of Bangladesh and in the U.S. Ishtiak is working on a STRIDE funded project titled "Integrated Implementation of Innovation Intersection Designs."

Christopher Brown of The Citadel won 2nd Place for his poster presented at the 6th Annual UTC Conference for the Southeastern Region at Clemson, S.C.

Troyee Saha of the University of Alabama at Birmingham won 1st Place for her podium presentation at the 6 th  Annual UTC Conference for the Southeastern Region at Clemson, S.C. 

Technology Transfer
STRIDE Research Presented at ITS5C Summit

STRIDE hosted a workshop on “Managing Performance – From Active Transportation Management to Connected Vehicle Applications" at the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) 5C Summit on Oct. 7, 2018, in Jacksonville, FL.


(Photo credit: ITS5C)
6th Annual UTC Conference for the Southeastern Region

This year’s University Transportation Center's (UTC) Conference was hosted by the Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility (C2M2) at Clemson University, which attracted students, faculty, staff, state DOT representatives, and other transportation professionals in the southeast region. The STRIDE Center was one of the co-sponsors of this event.

K-12 Activities
Awards & Other News
Congratulations to Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for receiving the Engineering Educator of the Year Award presented to her at the 59th Annual Awards Banquet of the Engineering Council of Birmingham.

Congratulations to Dr. Ossama Ramadan for being selected as the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Most Esteemed Postdoc. The award is given to postdocs with the most number of publications, conference presentations, posters and awards.

Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku of UAB received the 2018 Certificate of Meritorious Achievement from the Southern District Institute of Transportation Engineers. The certificate was presented by Alabama Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ALSITE) president Mr. Cody Long, Skipper Consulting Inc., at the UAB ITE Student Chapter meeting on October 12, 2018.
Gokmen Pacal, a master's student in transportation engineering and graduate research assistant at the University of Alabama Transportation Engineering and Development (TREND) Lab , was selected to receive a scholarship award from the Gulf Region Intelligent Transportation Systems (GRITS) organization. The award was based on his essay titled “The Future of Communications in Transportation” and was presented at the 2018 Gulf Region ITS Workshop in Oxford, MS on November 8, 2018. Gokmen is an advisee of Dr. Virginia Sisiopiku and serves as Vice President of the UAB ITE Student Chapter. 
STRIDE Partners
University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI)
Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Development & Education Center (STRIDE)