National Center for Wood Transportation Structures

Institute for Transportation (InTrans) students earned multiple awards at the recent Missouri Valley District of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (MOVITE) Spring Conference.

InTrans doctoral candidates Aparna Joshi and Dorcas Okaidjah both earned student awards at the event held in Omaha, Nebraska last month.

Joshi, who is studying transportation engineering under advisor and REACTOR Lab Co-Director Anuj Sharma, received the Jan Kibbe Student Scholarship award. The scholarship is awarded to exceptional students who are pursuing transportation engineering and encouraging their continuation into the profession upon graduation.

Okaidjah, who is studying traffic operations and transportation planning under advisor and Iowa State University Associate Professor Chris Day, earned the first place Thomas J. Seburn Student Paper Award. Joshi also earned third place in the same category. The student paper award recognizes students for outstanding accomplishment in their efforts to conduct and report on independent and original research.

Okaidjah’s winning paper was titled, “Artificial Intelligence Based Sentiment Analysis of Dynamic Message Signs that Report Fatality Numbers Using Connected Vehicle Data,” and it detailed the impact of dynamic message signs (DMS) on driver behavior, focusing on messages that included road fatality statistics. She also presented the paper at the conference.

Joshi’s paper was titled, “Investigating Speed Deviation Patterns During Glucose Episodes: A Quantile Regression Approach.”