Transportation doctoral students Elise Barrella, Josie Kressner and Tom Wall were recently awarded the nationally competitive Eisenhower Fellowships to conduct transportation research.
Elise Barrella
She was awarded a full 2010 Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship to support her dissertation research. Elise is a second year PhD student in Georgia Tech's transportation systems group under the advisement of Dr. Adjo Amekudzi. Her research interests are in sustainable transportation infrastructure and planning and community development. She is currently working on an FHWA-sponsored project that will produce a guidebook to help agencies incorporate sustainability into the transportation planning process. Her dissertation will complement this research by developing a self assessment method that will help transportation agencies easily identify and implement sustainability best practices. In addition to her academic achievements, Elise is a campus leader serving as the President of Women's Transportation Seminar and Marshall of Chi Epsilon Honor Society for the 2009-2010 school year.Josephine Kressner
She was awarded a Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship this past April. She is a first year Ph.D. candidate in Georgia Tech's Transportation Systems group minoring in Statistics and is advised by Dr. Laurie A. Garrow. Josie was awarded a Georgia Tech Presidential Fellowship as an incoming student and recently received an Honorable Mention for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her research efforts are focused on residential location choice models and socio-demographics. She is examining the effects of income, race, age, and other such demographic characteristics on how often and where people move, specifically with regards to sustainable transportation and similar relating infrastructure developments. Her research is unique in that these relationships are being studied with a large scale disaggregate data set. She has recently joined Georgia Tech's chapters of Institute of Transportation Engineers and Women in Transportation Seminar.
Thomas Wall
He was also awarded a Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship this past April. Tom's research will investigate the potential impact of climate change on transportation infrastructure. The growing consensus in the global scientific community is that the planet's climate is changing. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2007 that scientific observation has shown a global increase in the frequency and extremity of storm events, flooding, and average temperatures. Events such as Hurricane Katrina underscore the profound implications that such changes will have for civil infrastructure in the future. However, U.S. research institutions and government agencies have only recently begun to investigate strategies for adapting existing infrastructure to changes in the climate. Tom also won a Fulbright awawd and will be studying at University of Oxford and the University of Amsterdam.
Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) awards fellowships on the basis of merit, which includes class standing, transportation work experience, recommendation letters, and the student's proposed plan of study. Applications are evaluated by the Eisenhower Graduate Fellowships National Review Panel, composed of prominent national transportation professionals.
Professor Michael D. Meyer, the Frederick R. Dickerson Chair and director of the Georgia Transportation Institute, stated "It is highly unusual for one university to receive three such fellowships in one year, and so we are extremely pleased that the USDOT has recognized the quality of the transportation graduate students at Georgia Tech".
DDETFP attracts qualified students to the field of transportation education and research to advance transportation workforce development. The Program is intended to bring innovation and enhance the breadth and scope of knowledge of the entire transportation community in the United States. The Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship Program encompasses all modes of transportation. It is administered by the Federal Highway Administration for the U.S. Department of Transportation. For additional information about DDETFP visit: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ugp/2010_grad_app.htm