OTREC Student of the Year

The Student of the Year award is presented during the Council of University Transportation Centers banquet at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in January. For the past 15 years, the U.S. Department of Transportation has honored an outstanding graduate student from each UTC at this special ceremony. Each student receives a certificate from USDOT and $1,000 plus the cost of attendance from his or her center. Criteria for this award include technical merit and research accomplishments, academic performance, professionalism and leadership.

2009 Student of the Year

Nathan McNeil, Portland State University. At the time of the award, Nathan was in his second year of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning Program at PSU. He holds a Bachelor of Art in History from Columbia University. Nathan worked with professors Jennifer Dill and Christopher Monsere to evaluate Portland’s “ HYPERLINK "http://otrec.us/project/227" Bike Boxes.” He was the recipient of the 2008-2009 Rex Burkholder and Lydia Rich Scholarship, awarded through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation at PSU. In 2008, he won an award for best poster at the Region X Student Conference.

Nathan is examining how bicycling can be incorporated into the application of walkable “20-minute” neighborhoods. Nathan has formulated a strategy for regional planning government Metro to incorporate climate change concerns into planning activities and surveyed Portland stakeholders on how PSU can serve the region in the area of sustainability. While living in New York, Nathan worked for a community economic development nonprofit, worked in social policy research, and served as a performance auditor for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Office of the Inspector General.

2008 Student of the Year

Christo Brehm, University of Oregon. At the time of the award, Christo was pursuing a concurrent graduate degree in community and regional planning and landscape architecture. He holds an undergraduate degree in planning, public policy and management and has spent many years working in the field of affordable housing. While a student at the University of Oregon, Christo designed one of the nation’s first assessment tools of the emerging Complete Streets concept. He has traveled across the country leading community assessment workshops using this tool, which works in a mobile GIS environment. Christo co-authored a paper for the 2009 TRB national conference and has presented his work at the national Pro Bike/Pro Walk conference. Leaders of two Oregon state agencies asked him to share his work with smaller Oregon communities.Christo was a founding member and director of a campus-wide, interdisciplinary transportation and livability student group at the U of O called LiveMove. During this time, he worked with OTREC associate director Mark Schlossberg and has been an exceptional student researcher and leader.

2007 Student of the Year

Oren Eshel, Portland State University. After receiving a B.A. in geography from the University of California at Berkeley, Oren managed the Systems Engineering group at the San Francisco International Airport, where he worked on information technology planning in support of airport infrastructure projects. Oren embarked upon graduate study to focus on public transit, equity in provision of transit services, and regional planning. His interest in regional planning techniques drew him to Portland, OR where, at the time of the award, he was a Master of Urban and Regional Planning graduate student at Portland State University. Oren was a research assistant in the Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab at PSU. He was working on a project to evaluate an adaptive ramp metering system in the Portland region. Oren was 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 was president of the PSU transportation student group and ITE chapter (STEP) and coordinated the Fall 2007 Transportation Northwest District 10 Student Conference. Over 70 students from across the region attended. Oren volunteers with community outreach and events that encourage bicycling and walking. He is an avid bicyclist and enjoys traveling and spending time in the outdoors with his wife Allison.

2006 Student of the Year

Max Coffman, Portland State University. At the time of the award, Max was a master’s student in Urban and Regional Planning at Portland State University, and was described by faculty as an excellent student who contributed to class and had a top 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 ITS World Congress, and is presented a paper entitled, "State of ITS: Telling Intelligent Transportation Systems Success Story for Portland, Oregon (Session 384) at the 86th Annual Meeting of TRB.

Max is from Houston, Texas, where he sat in more traffic than he cares to remember. As an undergraduate in Washington, DC, he grew accustomed to being within walking distance of cultural, shopping, entertainment and community resources, and would like to never go back to an automobile-dependent life. At Georgetown, 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, where he started a love affair with trams and continued to walk whenever possible. Max interned as a policy analyst at the Portland Office of Transportation and worked as a Transportation Staff Associate for Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams. After graduation, Max was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow and found work at the Federal Highway Administration's Budget Office in Washington, D.C.