Faculty & GRAs
Dr. Qisheng Pan
Professor, Public Affairs and Planning
Prof. Pan’s research interests span transportation and infrastructure planning, economic impact analysis, and applications of Computing Technology and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in urban studies. His research on infrastructure planning explores the economic impacts of infrastructure facilities, infrastructure management, and the spatial layouts of urban infrastructures for significant real estate developments. His transportation-related research concentrates on freight transportation modeling, socio-economic impacts of transportation projects, transit accessibility measures, and environmental effects of transportation.
Dr. Ariadna Reyes-Sanchez
Assistant Professor, Public Affairs and Planning
Originally from Mexico City, Ariadna serves as Assistant Professor at CAPPA’s Public Affairs and Planning Department at the University of Texas at Arlington. She teaches courses on planning, sustainable communities, green cities, and transportation. Before this, she served as a research associate at the Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2) and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. At UPenn, Ariadna taught courses on environmental life cycle assessment and sustainable housing in the United States. She also served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Global Shifts Program at Penn’s Perry World House.
Dr. Roya Etminani-ghasrodashti
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Roya Etminani-ghasrodashti is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is an urban planning scholar with research interests in transportation and land use planning. Her line of research centers on travel behavior, built environment, individuals’ lifestyle, attitudes, and perceptions towards transportation and residential neighborhoods. She has worked on young adults’ travel behavior, online and in-store shopping trips, and on-demand ride services in different urban settings.
Dr. Anurag Pande
Associate Professor, Transportation
Dr. Anurag Pande is the Student Chapter Faculty Advisor and an Associate Professor in the Cal Poly Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His teaching and research interests include traffic safety, traffic simulation, and statistical analysis of transportation data. He is the editor of the upcoming edition of the Traffic Engineering Handbook published by ITE. Dr. Pande has earned multiple awards and has publications in well-known transportation journals.
Dr. Shams Tanvir
Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Shams Tanvir is an Assistant Professor in the Cal Poly Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He conducts research and teaches in the area of sustainable mobility. His research aims to develop and characterize transportation technologies that minimize energy consumption and emissions while enhancing mobility efficiency and equity. Dr. Tanvir is a member of the TRB standing committee for Transportation Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation.
Dr. Peng Chen
Assistant professor
Dr. Peng Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of South Florida. He has an interdisciplinary background in urban planning, transportation engineering, human geography, and statistics. His research relies heavily on quantitative analysis, especially spatial regression and time-series analysis. In addition, his interests center on shared mobility, personalized incentives for travel behavior change.
Kristine Williams
AICP, PCM Program Director
Kristine Williams, AICP, directs the Planning and Corridor Management research program at the University of South Florida, Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR). Ms. Williams is an urban planner and land use and transportation policy analyst interested in multimodal planning, access management, sustainable development, and transportation equity.
Ladan Mozaffarian
Ph.D. Student, Urban Planning & Public Policy, UTA
Ladan Mozaffarian is a Ph.D. student of Urban Planning and Public Policy (UPPP) at The University of Texas at Arlington. Ladan completed her Masters of Landscape Architecture and Bachelors of Architecture from SBU in Tehran, Iran. As a graduate research assistant (GRA), Ladan has worked on different research projects at the Center for Transportation Equity, Decisions, and Dollars (CTEDD).
Soheil Sharifi-Asl
Ph.D. Student, Urban Planning & Public Policy, UTA
Soheil is a Ph.D. student and graduate research assistant at the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs. Holding a master’s and bachelor’s degree in urban planning from the University of Tehran and completing his dissertations in transportation, Soheil is interested in urban transportation, urban mobility, and transportation infrastructure planning.
Elmira Shirgir
Ph.D. Student, Urban Planning & Public Policy, UTA
Elmira Shirgir is currently a Ph.D. student and a research assistant at the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at The University of Texas in Arlington. Elmira has also completed her Ph.D. in Urban design at IUST in Tehran. She has done a graduate degree in Landscape Architecture and an undergraduate degree in Environmental engineering at university of Tehran. Her research focuses on Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI), Urban Climate Resilience, Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Landscape ecology.
Peyton Ratto
M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering and MCRP City and Regional Planning with a Specialization in Transportation Planning.
Peyton is currently a master’s student in a joint interdisciplinary program studying Civil and Environmental Engineering and City and Regional Planning at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She is a research student under Anurag Pande. Peyton holds a B.S. in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She is pursuing her interests in transportation safety and complete streets.
Katherine Lee
M.S. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Katherine is currently a master’s student studying Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, emphasizing transportation engineering, and is slated to graduate in December 2021. She is currently working on her thesis and expanding and optimizing biking infrastructure to generate complete streets. She is a research student assistant under Dr. Anurag Pande. Katherine is interested in transportation safety, complete streets, and traffic engineering.
Dana Ebe
M.S. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dana is a graduate student and a research student assistant under Dr. Anurag Pande at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Dana is pursuing an M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and her coursework will focus on transportation engineering and planning. Dana holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She is pursuing her interests in traffic operations, transportation safety, and traffic signal and multi-modal design.
Tia Boyd
Research Associate at USF Center for Urban Transportation Research
Tia is a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on transportation decision-making, with an emphasis on equity in transportation planning. She leads roles for several projects developing methods and tools to advance equity in transportation planning processes and generating curricula and other educational resources for transportation planning. She also serves in supporting roles for several projects focused on MPO policy, planning, and programming.