Erik Jenelius

Advisory Board Member Ruth Harshfield

OTREC Advisory Board member Ruth Harshfield is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Community Traffic Safety in Oregon (ACTS Oregon). ACTS Oregon is a statewide non-profit membership organization whose mission is to reduce fatalities, injuries and the severity of injuries resulting from vehicle crashes throughout Oregon. Her team works to impact the safety of child passengers and support communities working to address local traffic safety concerns. ACTS Oregon Child Safety Seat Resource Center hosts National Child Passenger Safety Technician Training courses and promotes the correct use and installation of child safety seats through safety seat check up events and distribution programs. As a course instructor, Ruth teaches classes and supports technicians with ongoing training and re-certification. The ACTS Oregon Community Traffic Safety Program works with over 60 Traffic Safety Committees and Commissions throughout Oregon, providing support with resources and information to help address local concerns. Managing the Building Safer Communities and Bicycle Safety Mini-Grant programs, ACTS Oregon directs over $82,000 in grant funds to local communities for projects such as a DUI Safe Driving Campaign, speed check projects, Spanish and teen radio programs, traffic safety fairs, bicycle safety rodeos, the ‘Bikemobile’ Traveling Safety Show, etc. Working with ODOT, Ruth is currently planning the 2008 Oregon Transportation Safety Conference that will bring together traffic engineers, law enforcement, community advocates, emergency responders and child passenger safety technicians for training and networking. Ruth has been with ACTS Oregon since it was incorporated in 1994, currently serves as the Advisory Board President for Oregon SAFE KIDS, and is a member of the Clackamas County Safe Communities Advisory Board. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Portland State University in 1976.

Advisory Board Member Rob Inerfeld

OTREC Advisory Board member Rob Inerfeld is the Transportation Planning Manager for the City of Eugene Public Works Department, where his team works on a variety of issues including regional transportation planning, traffic calming, development of pedestrian and bicycle facilities, public involvement for street design projects, and activities to encourage use of alternatives to single occupancy driving. Rob recently led the development of Eugene's first Pedestrian and Bicycle Strategic Plan. Rob notes that, "a key partner in the development of the Plan was the Community Planning Workshop (CPW) at the University of Oregon (through a project co-sponsored by OTREC), which provided a tremendous amount of work during the planning process. The students involved organized public involvement activities, facilitated meetings, performed research, and helped write the plan and design graphics." Rob explains that the Eugene Pedestrian and Bicycle Strategic Plan is different from most other city plans in that it assigns responsibility for implementation of action items not only to city departments and agencies, but also to community based organizations. Rob came to Eugene in 2005 from the City of Takoma Park, Maryland where he worked as Senior Planner. Previous work experiences include directing Community Greens, a national initiative that encourages the development of green spaces inside urban blocks, and serving as Program Director of the Neighborhood Design Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Rob earned a Master of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998 and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School, both at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. We welcome Rob to the OTREC Advisory Board!

Advisory Board Member Neil McFarlane

OTREC is honored to welcome Neil McFarlane, TriMet's Executive Director for Capital Projects and Facilities Division, to our Board of Advisors. Mr. McFarlane is currently serving as the vice chair of PSU's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science Advisory Board, and has worked diligently to support and develop the Urban Rail Transit short course series. Mr. McFarlane leads the development, design and construction of TriMet's capital facilities. Under Neil's direction, TriMet completed the Interstate MAX light rail extension to North Portland, which opened in May 2004. The project set new standards for environmentally friendly construction and disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) participation. Neil also represented TriMet in the unique public-private partnership with Bechtel Enterprises, which developed and constructed the Airport MAX extension. This 5.5 mile project is the first train-to-plane transit service on the West Coast. Previously, Neil was Project Control Director for the 18 mile, $963 million Westside light rail project, which featured a 3 mile twin bore tunnel, 20 stations, 3,800 park and ride spaces and the nation’s first low floor light rail vehicles. Neil also helped manage construction for the 500,000 square foot $90 million Oregon Convention Center. Neil earned an M.A. in Urban Planning from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1977 and a B.S. from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona in 1975. We appreciate the valuable multimodal perspectives and commitment to research and education that Neil brings to our external advisory board.

Advisory Board Member Doug Tindall

In January 2005, Doug Tindall became the Deputy Director for the Highway Division after serving almost a decade as the State Maintenance Engineer. As ODOT’s Highway Division Deputy Director, Tindall leads nearly 3,000 employees and manages a biennial budget of $1.3 billion, while overseeing the design, construction and maintenance more than 8,000 state highway miles and some 2,600 state-owned bridges. Tindall joined the Oregon Department of Transportation in 1978, working over the years in Research, Traffic Engineering, Project Scheduling, Construction and Information Systems. In 1996, he became State Maintenance Engineer, where he managed the development of statewide maintenance policies, procedures and staffing. Tindall has served as President of the International Highway Engineering Exchange Program and as a member of various AASHTO and WASHTO Standing and Sub-Committees. A native Oregonian, Tindall grew up in Salem and graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering. In 1982, he became a Registered Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering.

Philip A. Ditzler

In July 2007, Phillip Ditzler was appointed the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Oregon Division Administrator, serving as the principal representative of the FHWA in Oregon and responsible for administering the Federal-aid Highway Program in the State. Phillip heads the statewide office, providing leadership and guidance to State and local officials in planning and setting priorities for carrying out State and national transportation program goals. Phillip began his career with FHWA in 1984 as a summer intern on highway construction projects in the Pacific Northwest. Since that time, Phillip has held a wide range of positions with FHWA in both field and headquarters units. Phillip holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington, and is licensed as a Professional Engineer in the states of Washington and South Dakota.

Bill Upton

Bill Upton is the Transportation Model Program manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation. He developed the Transportation and Land Use Model Integration Project to create, test and implement the first functional integrated statewide model in the United States. He directed development of the Oregon Statewide Integrated Model that allows consideration of the interaction of economics, land use and transportation when considering alternative policy choices. He developed the Oregon Modeling Improvement Program, which defines the strategic resources, outreach, development, implementation and research/data programs needed to guide the coordinated Oregon modeling program.

Bill organized and manages the Oregon Modeling Steering Committee (OMSC), a consortium of local, state and federal agencies and Oregon metropolitan planning organizations. The OMSC includes key state agencies responsible for land use, transportation, economic and environmental policy development and implementation and provides strategic guidance, peer review, and oversight to modeling in Oregon. Bill manages a team of technical staff and consultants to develop and implement transportation models for local, regional and statewide application.

Mike Flanigon

Mike Flanigon is the Director of FTA’s Office of Safety and Security. He has been involved in the rail transportation industry for over thirty-five years. He began his career as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Lines. During his tenure on S.P. he worked as a switchman, conductor, locomotive engineer and operating rules instructor. Mike spent four years with the California Public Utilities Commission in the rail transit state safety oversight program. He later worked at the Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, California, where he served first as Environmental Health and Safety Manager and later as Light Rail Superintendent of Way, Power and Signal Maintenance. Mike also served as Chief Safety Officer at the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).  Beginning his career in federal service with the NTSB in 2001, Mike served as Investigator-in-Charge on several major railroad and rail transit investigations. He was recognized by the NTSB as 2003 regional investigator of the year for his work in improving transportation safety.

Mike earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology from California Sate University, Los Angeles and his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He is a Senior Associate with the Transportation Safety Institute and has taught courses in Rail System Safety and Rail Accident Investigation since 1993.

Dr. Christopher Higgins

Dr. Marc Schlossberg

Dr. Roger Lindgren

Lindgren is a native of Edmonton, Canada and has nearly twenty years of engineering and teaching experience. His research interests include traffic flow theory, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), microscopic simulation of urban and rural traffic, as well as pavement design and analysis. Dr. Lindgren is currently conducting empirical studies of freeway traffic data in an effort to extend the knowledge and understanding of traffic features in queued and congested flow.

In addition to his faculty position in the Department of Civil Engineering at Oregon Tech., Dr. Lindgren is an Associate Director of OTREC, and is a research associate with Portland State University's Center for Transportation Studies and is affiliated with the Intelligent Transportations Systems Laboratory at PSU.

Dr. John Gliebe

Dr. John Gliebe joined the PSU School of Urban Studies and Planning last fall, bringing with him six years of transportation and land use modeling experience with Parsons Brinckerhoff. Dr. Gliebe has a master's degree in urban planning from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University. Dr. Gliebe is developing a transportation and land use modeling lab, and is teaching a new course in discrete choice modeling. He has taught other grad courses this year, including Urban Transportation Planning and Travel Demand Modeling, and is involved in the weekly transportation seminar series. Dr. Gliebe's research interests are on the development of advanced travel demand modeling methods, such as activity-based models and integrated land use and transportation models. His objective is to improve the behavioral realism of modeling practices, with the underlying goal of offering better tools for policy analysis. Dr. Gliebe has extensive experience with statewide modeling for the Federal Highway Administration and a demonstration project that was supported by Metro and ODOT. He will be working to create strong relationships with community partners in the Portland region.

Dr. Miguel Figliozzi

Dr. Miguel Figliozzi believes that innovation in freight transportation and logistics are necessary for a sustainable and vibrant economy. That is, he believes freight research and innovation not only benefit private companies but also enable the optimal use of infrastructure, as well as ensuring environmental quality, livable communities, and economic growth. Dr. Figliozzi hopes to push these ideas further and help expand his students’ analytical and policy capabilities in these areas. Dr. Figliozzi joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Portland State University in the fall of 2007. Originally from Cordoba, Argentina, he completed his undergraduate studies at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba. Dr. Figliozzi’s later studies were completed in the U.S. at the University of Texas at Austin (M.S.) and the University of Maryland College Park (Ph.D.). He then taught at the University of Sydney, Australia in the Business School’s Institute for Transport and Logistics. He was attracted to Portland State University in part because of the dynamic growth and energy of the transportation engineering research group. Dr. Figliozzi teaches graduate courses in freight transportation, supply chain/logistics, networks and optimization, as well as the undergraduate introductory course to transportation engineering. His research interests and publications include: fleet management and ve­hicle routing, pricing in trucking and freight, the impact of conges­tion on carriers and commercial vehicle movements, web-based and GPS freight data collection and applications, maritime transportation and international freight, green logistics, shippers and carriers value of time and reliability, and transport related supply chain disruptions. Recently Dr. Figliozzi attended the 10th International Conference on Applications of Advanced Technologies in Transportation (AATT) in Athens, Greece, where his paper was selected from over 600 entries for the Best Paper Award in the transportation planning category. More information on Dr. Figliozzi’s publications, research, and teaching can be found at: http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~maf. Contact Dr. Figliozzi at: figliozzi@pdx.edu.

Dr. Jennifer Dill

Dr. Dill teaches courses in transportation policy, transportation and land use, and planning methods. Her research interests focus on transportation and environmental planning, travel behavior, air quality, and transportation-land use interactions. She is interested in answering these questions: How do people make their travel and location decisions? How do those decisions impact the environment and people's health? How do our planning decisions impact people's travel and location decisions? Two current research projects focus on bicycling and transit-oriented developments. Dr. Dill has also conducted extensive research on travel behavior and older vehicles, evaluating the air quality impacts of voluntary accelerated vehicle retirement programs. Prior to entering academia, she worked as an environmental and transportation planner.

Dr. Christopher Monsere

Dr. Christopher M. Monsere is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is an affiliated faculty member of the School of Urban Studies & Planning (USP). Monsere received his BCE from the University of Detroit Mercy (Detroit, Michigan) in 1995; his MSCE with an emphasis in transportation from Iowa State University ( Ames, Iowa) in 1997; and his Ph.D. in civil engineering at Iowa State University in 2001. Dr. Monsere’s primary research interests are in the areas of highway safety, freight transportation, operations, and intelligent transportation systems and has sucessfully obtained external funding for his work. Prior to joining the faculty at Portland State University, Monsere was the Highway Safety Engineer at the Oregon Department of Transportation in Salem from 2000 to 2004. His responsibilities include the identification of statewide high crash locations, developing and managing tools for the evaluation of safety projects, approving highway illumination, and technical evaluations of highway safety improvements. During his tenure at ODOT, Monsere directed significant improvements in the highway safety program at ODOT. Dr Monsere is a member of the TRB Task Force to develop the Highway Safety Manual (ANB25T), the Safety Data Analysis and Evaluation (ANB20) committee, and served on two NCHRP panels (Review of AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan Guidebooks and the Future Strategic Highway Safety Research Program). Dr. Monsere is licensed professional engineer in the state of Oregon.

Dr. Carl Abbott

Dr. Abbott has been teaching at Portland State University since the late 1970s. In that time he has taught several generations of students and has been involved with a number of community organizations. Dr. Abbott's research and writing have increasingly focused on the urban history and planning in Portland and in the American West, although he's also written books about Washington, D.C. and about western history narratives in science fiction. Dr. Abbott's big project, to be published in 2008 by the University of New Mexico Press is titled How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America. You can find a full listing of Dr. Abbott's publications on his c.v.

Dr. Anthony M. Rufolo

Prior to joining the faculty at Portland State in 1980, he spent six years as an economist and senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. He has conducted research and published extensively in the areas of state and local finance, transportation, labor issues, and regional economics. Dr. Rufolo has practical experience with local economic development and finance issues in addition to his research and teaching experience. His experience with government forecasting and budgeting includes: (Oregon) Governor's Council of Economic Advisors 1983-1994, City of Beaverton Budget Committee 1990-1995 (chair 1992-1994), Advisory Committee on the Budget for Tri-Met (the Portland Area Transit Agency) 1991-1995 (chair 1994-95), and the Investment Advisory Committee for the city of Portland since 1992.

Kristin Tufte

Dr. Kristin Tufte is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in Computer Science and Civil & Environment Engineering. Dr. Tufte's area of specialization is database systems. In particular, she studies techniques for processing data streams such as network (Internet) traffic, environmental sensor readings, traffic sensor data, and telephone call records. Interesting challenges presented by these types of data are the "unending" nature of data streams and disordered, dirty, skewed, and bursty data. Dr. Tufte is interested in applying data stream technology to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) data streams such as loop detector data and bus dispatch data in an effort to provide improved traffic measurements to ITS professionals. Dr. Tufte is currently involved in the PORTALNiagara Stream Query Engine and previously the Paradise GIS Database project.

Dr. Peter Dusicka

Infrastructure, including bridges, towers, and large buildings, needs to be strong to withstand an earthquake or a sudden impact. But they also need to be flexible; they have to be able to move and absorb shock in order to survive. Assistant Professor Peter Dusicka’s research revolves around the materials and engineering that promote survivability. Dusicka came to Portland State in 2004 from the University of Nevada in part because of PSU’s infraStructure Testing and Applied Research (iSTAR) lab. The lab features a large platform that reproduces the seismic shaking of real earthquakes and is used to test the resiliency of engineered structures and their materials. The laboratory’s capability is of enormous value to public agencies and engineering firms that are designing structures for the earthquake-prone regions of the Pacific Northwest. He is currently working with the Oregon Department of Transportation to determine the seismic vulnerability of more than 2,000 highway bridges in the state. He’s also investigating new uses for high-performance materials such as fiber reinforced composites and flexible elastomers, which can be used along with more traditional building materials such as concrete and steel.“Public safety is my primary concern,” Dusicka says. “One of the gratifications of the civil engineering profession is its direct impact on society.”

Dr. Yizhao Yang

Yizhao Yang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management at University of Oregon. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the connection between the urban form and people’s perception and behavior, including urban development patterns, neighborhood satisfaction, and physical activity. Her research findings have been published or are currently under review in a number of journals. Dr. Yang’s research has received support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. From 2005 to 2006, she was a Census Bureau researcher with Special Sworn Status, and was given permission to access confidential census data for her research.

Dr. Mark Sytsma

Mark Sytsma is an Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences, director of the Center for Lakes and Reservoirs, and co-director of the Aquatic Bioinvasion Research and Policy Institute. His primary research interest is in limnology and the biology and management of aquatic invasive species. Long-term, ongoing projects include the limnology of Waldo Lake, an ultraoligotrophic lake in the Cascade Mountains; aquatic plant surveys in Pacific Northwest lakes; invasive species in the Columbia River; dreissenid mussel monitoring in western states; spartina management in Oregon estuaries; ballast water transport of aquatic invasive species; and ballast water management policy development. He co-authored the Oregon Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan and is responsible for implementation of the Plan in collaboration with other state agencies. He is a founding member of the Oregon Invasive Species Council, the Columbia River Basin Team of the 100th Meridian Initiative, and the Western Regional Panel on Aquatic Nuisance Species.

Dr. Daniel Cox

Dr. Cox's research focuses on coastal processes, particularly nearshore hydrodynamics, sediment transport, surf zone turbulence and boundary layer processes. He also has an interest in the design and performance of coastal structures. He teaches junior level fluid mechanics and coastal and ocean engineering at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He has an interest in applying classroom assessment techniques to undergraduate engineering courses, and and combining research and education at the undergraduate level through summer Undergratuate Research Experience programs.

Dr. Trevor Smith

Over the past 24 years Dr. Smith's research has focused on providing Geotechnical Engineers improved input for computer modeling of design problems. Of particular note is the research conducted on understanding arid collapsible soils, pile behavior under horizontal load, conversion of ODOT's RCAD guide, and reliability based design (RBD) probabilistic slope stability. The collapsible soil studies have defined soil behavior under wetting conditions, methods to test with insitu tools and design methods for the calculation of foundation settlements on these soils. All of these foundation engineering research studies have included insitu testing based design and analyses, with special emphasis on the role played by the prebored Pressuremeter (PMT). Portland State's geotechnical program has a national reputation for PMT work and application of its variety of probes and 3 control units feature in the curriculum, as well as research endeavors. Dr. Smith developed the graduate program in geotechnical Engineering and has advised over 50 MS students.

Dr. B. Starr McMullen

Professor McMullen has a variety of interests in the general area of public policy analysis. Most of her work is in the field of transportation economics where she has dealt with issues related to competition, regulation, efficiency, productivity, pricing, congestion, highway finance, environment, and economic development. Her current research involves assessing the distributional and social impacts of highway user fees and examining the impacts of airline code share agreements. She is also interested in business cycles and macroeconomic policy especially as it impacts Oregon and the northwest.

Carla D. Gary, J.D.

Gary is a native Oregonian, having grown up in Portland. In addition to her master's degree from the UO, she earned a doctor of jurisprudence degree from the University of Iowa. She previously was associate dean for affirmative action and faculty development at the University of Pittsburgh's College of Arts and Sciences and, prior to that, was associate director of the Office of Graduate Minority Affairs at the University of Maryland.

Robert Parker

Dr. Lynn Weigand

Lynn Weigand is the Director of the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI). She completed her doctorate in Urban Studies at Portland State University in 2007. Her primary areas of research, teaching, and work experience include community design for active living, local transportation planning, and park and open space design.

Dr. David Jay

Dr. Jay conducts research in buoyant plume processes, estuarine circulation and salinity intrusion, suspended sediment transport, coastal tides, biophysical interactions, estuarine comparison and classification, human alteration of coastal environments, fisheries oceanography and turbulence/mixing in stratified flows. This work examines spatial scales from microns to river basins and time scales from seconds to centuries. It also requires development of innovative data analysis methods, e.g., for wavelet tidal analysis and multi-sensor estimates of suspended sediment concentration.

Dr. Karen Dixon

Dr. David Maier

Dr. David Sillars

Dr. Sillars' technical and research interests include interorganizational relationships in the construction industry; cultural factors in facility delivering; project delivery alternatives; and strategic organizational structuring at the project and enterprise level. Dr. Sillars is also Director of the Robert C. Wilson Program in Construction Engineering Management, a program designed to increase students' knowledge of engineering and business in preparation for advanced positions in the construction industry.

Dr. Heejun Chang

Dr. James Strathman

Dr. Jessica Greene

Dr. Greene's interests include the impact of changes in the health care system on access and quality of care, particularly for vulnerable populations including the poor, people of color and older adults.

Dr. Madeleine E Pullman

Madeleine (Mellie) Pullman is an associate professor of operations management at Portland State University. She earned her Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Utah in 1997. She has previously taught in Graduate and Executive programs at Cornell University, London Business School, Southern Methodist University, Colorado State, and University of Utah. Her major research interests include new product and service creativity and design, sustainable food supply chain issues, recreation and experience design, and operations/marketing interdisciplinary issues. Her articles have appeared in various journals and periodicals.

Mr. John Jeffrey Schnabel

Dr. Mark Gillem

Professor Gillem holds a joint appointment in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture departments and teaches architecture and urban design studios, urban design seminars, and co-teaches our Human Context course. His studios and seminars have given students the opportunity to engage in field studies of actual places, and produce plans and research reports for actual clients. In his professional practice, he prepares urban design plans and architectural designs for clients worldwide. He is the author of America Town: Building the Outposts of Empire (2007, University of Minnesota Press) and numerous papers and articles that explore the link between architecture and urban design.

Megan Smith

Dr. Michael H. Scott

Mr. Nico Larco

Professor Nico Larco, AIA, joined the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon in 2005. He holds degrees in both architecture and cognitive psychology from Cornell University and degrees in both architecture and planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Larco is a licensed architect, and has over eight years of professional experience in architecture, planning, and urban design. He is affiliated faculty in the Department of Planning, Public Policy, and Management and teaches courses focused on the intersection between architecture, planning, and urban design. Originally from Argentina, he is spending this term teaching there. Professor Larco’s research focuses on suburban multifamily housing, a widespread, and often overlooked development type that has tremendous transportation related smart growth potential. His research investigates rethinking suburban multifamily development patterns to create more sustainable models that promote multi-modal travel in suburbia (see article above). Professor Larco prioritizes bringing real-world, professional experiences into the classroom and has taught a “fringe urbanism” studio in which students worked with architects, developers, and planners to develop more integrated designs for an actual suburban multifamily project. Professor Larco is the faculty advisor for designBridge (http://designbridge.org), a student based, community focused design/build program that has involved students in a number of local transportation projects. He is also a co-faculty advisor for Live/Move, the new UO transportation student group, and likes to play guitar, hike and camp.

Dr. David Levinson

Dr. Todd V. Scholz

Dr. Scholz joined the faculty of the Construction Engineering Management program in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University in 2005.   His teaching and research interests are in heavy civil construction equipment and methods, pavement materials and design, mechanistic analysis of pavement structures, performance-related and performance-based specifications, warranties, quality control/quality assurance, pavement management systems, geographic information systems, life cycle costs analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, and engineering software applications development.

Dr. Robert L. Bertini

Dr. Robert L. Bertini is a Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Urban Studies & Planning at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, USA. A registered professional engineer, he is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transportation Studies in the College of Urban and Public Affairs, and the Director of the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, a national university transportation center comprised of four Oregon universities. With 20 years of experience in transportation, Bertini is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award and he directs the Intelligent Transportation Systems lab at Portland State. He has received 3 degrees in civil engineering: a BS from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, an MS from San Jose State University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Student of the Year Oren Eshel

Oren Eshel, Portland State University, was chosen as OTREC's 2007 Student of the Year. Oren's interest in regional planning techniques drew him to Portland, Oregon where is he is a graduate student in urban and regional planning at PSU. After receiving a B.A. in geography from the University of California at Berkeley, Oren worked in systems engineering at the San Francisco International Airport. He embarked upon graduate study to focus on public transit, equity in provision of transit services, and regional planning. Oren is a research assistant in the Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab at PSU, and is working on a project to evaluate an adaptive ramp metering system in the Portland region. He is also an intern with the City of Portland's Transportation Planning section. Oren was nominated by faculty for this award not only because he excels at research and in the classroom, but because he has made a significant mark on the multidisciplinary transportation program at PSU. Oren is president of the PSU Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning (STEP) student group and coordinated the Fall 2007 Fifth Annual TransNow Student Conference (see article on facing page). Oren volunteers with community outreach and events that encourage bicycling and walking. He is an avid bicyclist and enjoys traveling and spending time with his wife Allison and new baby, Evan.

Student of the Year Max Coffman

OTREC 2006 Student of the Year Max Coffman was raised in Houston, Texas, where he sat in more traffic than he cares to remember. As an undergraduate in Washington, D.C., he grew accustomed to having outstanding cultural, retail, entertainment and community resources within walking distance, and would like to never go back to an automobile-dependent life. Max majored in Science, Technology and International Affairs, with an environmental focus, and found that his research paper topics showed a strong trend towards sustainable transportation issues. He studied transport planning at the University of Melbourne in Australia for a semester in 2004. Max received a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree specializing in transportation at Portland State University in 2007. In the future, he hopes to contribute to improving the Portland area's transportation services and making it an even lovelier place to live. Max has been a Transportation Staff Associate for a Portland City Commissioner, and worked as a Transportation Policy Analyst for the City of Portland. Max was highly recommended for the Student of the Year award by faculty in two departments as an excellent student who contributes to class and has an excellent GPA, while also being an active member of the ITS Lab, organizing events and mentoring other students. Max presented "Enhancing Targeted Traffic Enforcement Efforts in Portland, Oregon" at the Institute of Transportation Engineers District 6 Annual Meeting in June 2006, attended a Rail-volution conference in Chicago in November 2006, developed a paper for the 2006 ITS World Congress, and presented a paper at the Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting (Session 384) in January 2007. Max is currently a Presidential Management Fellow with the Federal Highway Administration Office of Budget, and is on assignment with the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.