About

Academic and Research Faculty

ITS-Davis faculty with a blue badge are affiliated with the Graduate Group in Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP).

Daniel Sperling, Ph.D.

  • Founding Director, ITS-Davis
  • Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy
  • Transportation, energy, and climate policy
  • "3 Revolutions" of automated, shared, and electric vehicles
Graduate Group TTP

Ralph C. Aldredge III, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Analytical, computational and experimental studies of turbulent flame propagation and combustion instabilities
  • Development of computational models and algorithms for simulation of reactive-flow dynamics
  • Biological-fluid dynamics

Gwen Arnold, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Environmental Science and Policy
  • Energy policy and planning
  • Use and interpretation of scientific knowledge/information in environmental policy decisions and processes
Graduate Group TTP

Francis F. Assadian, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Mathematical modeling and simulation of dynamic systems-bond graph approach
  • Vehicle dynamics
  • Global chassis control systems
  • Alternative powertrain
  • Energy optimization
  • Automatic and robust control

Jesus Barajas, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy
  • Transportation Equity
  • Why and how people travel
  • Planning and policy based on differences in travel behavior and safety
Graduate Group TTP

David S. Bunch, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Management
  • Consumer choice behavior
  • Choice modeling
  • New product development and introduction
  • Travel behavior, vehicle choice and alternative fuel vehicles
Graduate Group TTP

Andrew F. Burke, Ph.D.

  • Research Engineer, ITS-Davis
  • Electric and hybrid vehicle design, analysis, and testing
  • Applications of batteries and ultracapacitors for electric vehicles

James Bushnell, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Economics
  • Industrial organization and regulation
  • Energy economics and policy
  • Environmental economics
  • Game theoretic optimization models

Lijuan (Dawn) Cheng, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Innovative Infrastructures and Rehabilitation using Advanced Composite Materials
  • Large-scale Testing and Numerical Simulations
  • Design, Analysis and Durability of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composites
  • Design and Analysis of Bridges
  • Engineered Materials using Recycle Tires

Chen-Nee Chuah, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Networked Systems
  • Smart Connected Vehicles & Infrastructure
  • Applied Machine Learning
Graduate Group TTP

Giovanni Circella, Ph.D.

  • Director, 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program
  • Travel Behavior
  • Personal Attitudes and Lifestyles
  • Travel Demand Forecast
  • Discrete Choice Modeling
  • Emerging Trends in Transportation and Shared Mobility Services
  • Mobility of Young Adults (Millennials)
  • Connected and Autonomous Vehicles
  • Impact of Information Communication Technology (ICT) on Transportation
  • Land Use Modeling
  • Smart Growth and Sustainable Transportation
  • Land Use and Transportation Interaction
  • Energy Consumption from Transportation and Land Use
Graduate Group TTP

Paul Anders Erickson, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Electric and Hybrid Drive Vehicles
  • Fuel Cell Vehicles and Power Systems
  • Hydrogen Production and Utilization
  • Internal Combustion Engines
  • Solar Energy Utilization
Graduate Group TTP

Yueyue Fan, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Transportation and renewable energy infrastructure system modeling and optimization
  • Critical transportation and energy system protection
  • Adaptive network routing and research allocation processes
  • Stochastic and dynamic system modeling and computational methods
Graduate Group TTP

Beth Ferguson

  • Assistant Professor, Design
  • Bike share
  • Solar charging for electric vehicles
  • Public transportation
  • Autonomous electric vehicle share systems
  • Sustainable urban design
  • Ecological materials
  • Social entrepreneurship
Graduate Group TTP

Dillon Fitch-Polse, Ph.D.

  • Co-Director, BicyclingPlus
Graduate Group TTP

Lewis M. Fulton, Ph.D.

  • Director, Energy Futures Program
  • International transport and energy policy
  • Transportation technology potential, costs and benefits
  • Global energy transition modeling

Susan L. Handy, Ph.D.

  • Director, National Center for Sustainable Transportation
  • Co-Director, BicyclingPlus Research Collaborative
  • Associate Director for Education, ITS-Davis
  • Chair, TTP Graduate Group
  • Professor, Environmental Science and Policy
  • Relationships between transportation and land use
  • The impact of land use on travel behavior
  • Factors influencing bicycling as a mode of travel
  • Strategies for reducing automobile dependence
Graduate Group TTP

Scott Hardman, Ph.D.

  • Associate Research Faculty & Assistant Director, Electric Vehicle Research Center
  • Consumer Responses to Alternative Fuel Vehicles
  • Travel Behavior
  • Policy Analysis
  • Global Alternative Fuel Vehicle Markets
Graduate Group TTP

Andrew B. Hargadon, Ph.D.

  • Professor of Technology Management
  • Director, Center for Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Management
  • Director, Energy Efficiency Center
  • The effective management of innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Development and commercialization of sustainable technologies

John Harvey, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Principal Investigator, UC Pavement Research Center
  • Pavement engineering, including materials, construction, design, management, life cycle cost and environmental life cycle assessment
Graduate Group TTP

Miguel Jaller, Ph.D.

  • Co-director, Sustainable Freight Research Program
  • Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
  • Industrial and transportation engineering
  • Sustainable transportation systems
  • Humanitarian logistics
  • Supply chain management
  • Operations research
Graduate Group TTP

Bryan Jenkins, Ph.D.

  • Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Biology and Agricultural Engineering
  • Energy systems in agriculture
  • Biomass fuel production, thermal conversion, and environmental impacts
  • Combustion and gasification of biomass fuels
  • Properties of fuels
  • System models

Alan Jenn, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor
  • Alternative fuel vehicle adoption
  • Transitions to sustainable energy systems
  • Quantitative policy analysis
  • Big data statistical analysis
Graduate Group TTP

Alissa Kendall, Ph.D.

  • Associate Director, ITS-Davis
  • Ray B. Krone Endowed Professor of Environmental Engineering
  • Life cycle modeling applied to transportation systems
  • Energy systems
  • Construction materials, and buildings, with the goal of developing sustainable systems
Graduate Group TTP

Michael Kleeman, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Study of urban and regional air quality problems
  • Composition of atmospheric particles and gas-to-particle conversion processes

Kurt Kornbluth, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Adjunct Professor, Biological and Agricultural Engineering
  • Renewable energy technologies

Ken Kurani, Ph.D.

  • Associate Researcher, ITS-Davis
  • Household response to alternative fuel and electric-drive vehicles
  • Energy, climate, and environment in household travel choices
  • Behavioral theory in transportation and energy

Yongsung Lee, Ph.D.

  • Co-Director, 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program
  • STEPS+ Affiliate
  • Travel Behavior
  • Information Communication Technology
  • Shared Mobility
  • Autonomous Vehicle
  • Telework
Graduate Group TTP

Jia Li, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Adjunct Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Mixed autonomy transportation systems
  • Game theory modeling of traffic flow
  • Data science in built environment
  • Machine learning applications in safety

Xinfan Lin, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Battery system (modeling, diagnostic, and control), Electric vehicle, Automotive system, Vehicle to grid

Frank Loge, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Director, Center for Water-Energy Efficiency
  • Water and waste
  • Water treatment
  • Water reuse
  • Small and decentralized waste treatment

Mark Lubell, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy
  • Human behavior
  • Role of governance institutions in solving collective action problems and facilitating cooperation
Graduate Group TTP

Alan Meier, Ph.D.

  • Faculty Researcher and Associate Director, Energy Efficiency Center
  • Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • Adjunct Professor, UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy
  • How people and equipment use energy; opportunities to reduce energy consumption

Sabbie Miller, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Life cycle assessment
  • Alternative materials development
  • Sustainability and structural design

Marshall Miller, Ph.D.

  • Co-director, Sustainable Freight Research Program
  • Senior Development Engineer
  • Reducing greenhouse gases in the transportation sector using new fuels and vehicle technologies
  • Modeling the transportation sector (especially trucking) to understand the effect of integrating new technologies into the various truck fleets
  • Laboratory testing of batteries and ultracapacitors

Patricia L. Mokhtarian, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emerita, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior
  • Land use and transportation interactions
  • Attitudes toward travel
  • Congestion-response behavior
  • Travel time budgets
  • Transportation/air quality impacts of transportation demand management measures
Graduate Group TTP

Erich Muehlegger, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Economics
  • Industrial organization
  • Public finance
  • Economic regulation
  • Environmental policy

Somayeh Nassiri, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Pavement design
  • Materials
  • Repair
  • Rehabilitation
  • Management
Graduate Group TTP

Joan Ogden, Ph.D.

  • Professor Emerita, Environmental Science and Policy
  • Technical and economic assessment of new energy technologies
  • Modeling hydrogen infrastructure development
Graduate Group TTP

Ahmet Palazoglu, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
  • Modeling
  • Control and analysis of complex systems

Jae Wan Park, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Director, UC Davis Green Transportation Laboratory
  • Director Kor-US Transportation Study Program, ITS-Davis
  • Director UC Davis Formula Hybrid racing team
  • Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells: a. Flow field design, test and modeling to improve performance and stability. b. PEM fuel cell cold start and water management
  • Lithium ion battery: a. Test and modeling to investigate temperature effect and thermal management. b. Demonstration of smart electrical energy storage (EES) system using second life EV batteries
  • HEV power train design and simulation

Susie Pike Cayar, Ph.D.

  • Director, Transit Research Center
  • Travel Behavior
  • Transportation Planning and Policy
  • Sustainable Transportation
  • Public Transit
Graduate Group TTP

David Rapson, Ph.D.

  • Associate Professor, Economics
  • Industrial Organization

Bahram Ravani, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Computational kinematics and dynamics
  • Bio-dynamics of impact trauma
  • Computational geometry in design and manufacturing

Caroline Rodier, Ph.D.

  • Chair, U.S. Transportation Research Board Committee on Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies
  • Integrative modeling
  • Transportation and land use planning
  • Environmental policy analysis

Angela Sanguinetti, Ph.D.

  • Research Environmental Psychologist
  • Built environment impacts on behavior and well-being
  • Consumer adoption of resource-efficient technologies and behaviors
  • Eco-feedback

Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Director, Scaled Model Aerospace and Research Laboratory (SMARTLAB)
  • Co-Director, Transportation Noise Control Center (TNCC)
  • Aerospace and Mechanical Systems/Vehicles Structural Dynamics
  • Acoustics and Aeroeasticity
  • Vibroacoustics

Tyler Scott, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Environmental Science and Policy
  • Regulation and policymaking
  • Utility and infrastructure governance
  • Food-energy-water nexus
  • Collaborative governance
Graduate Group TTP

James Sharpnack, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Statistics
  • statistical machine learning
  • graph signal processing
  • anomaly detection

Fraser Shilling, Ph.D.

  • Academic Coordinator
  • Transportation ecology, the interactions of transportation systems with ecosystems and human communities
  • Indicators of ecosystem performance, and policy issues associated with water pollution
  • Impact of sea level rise on integrated planning of shoreline ecosystems and transportation
Graduate Group TTP

Iman Soltani, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Autonomous Driving
  • Manufacturing Automation
  • Preventive maintenance and industrial diagnosis
  • Precision instrumentation

Gil Tal, Ph.D.

  • Director, STEPS+
  • Director, EV Research Center
  • Professor, Environmental Science and Policy
  • Travel behavior, alternative fuel vehicles, travel demand modeling, transportation planning, environmental policy
  • Non-motorized transportation
  • Creation and use of data in transportation planning process
Graduate Group TTP

Jamey Volker, Ph.D.

  • Professional Researcher
  • NCST Affiliate
  • Environmental Impact Analysis
  • Transportation Impact Analysis
  • Travel Behavior
  • Induced Travel
  • Parking
  • Accessory Dwelling Units
  • Residential Location Choice
  • Land Use Regulation
  • Environmental Law
Graduate Group TTP

Yunshi Wang, Ph.D.

  • Director, China Center for Energy and Transportation

Kari Edison Watkins, Ph.D.

  • Co-Director, Transit Research Center
  • Associate Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
  • transit planning and operations
  • real-time traveler information
  • perceived and actual safety of cyclists and pedestrians
  • design of multimodal streets
  • natural experiments and innovative survey methods
  • emerging travel behavior data sources
Graduate Group TTP

Anthony S. Wexler, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Land, Air, and Water Resources
  • Director, Crocker Nuclear Laboratory
  • Air pollution
  • Biomedical engineering

Stephen Wheeler, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Landscape Architecture Program, Department of Environmental Design
  • Climate change planning for mitigation and adaptation
  • Evolution of built landscapes in metropolitan regions
  • Theory and practice of sustainable development
Graduate Group TTP

Julie Witcover, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Project Scientist
  • STEPS+ Researcher
  • Indirect land use effect of biofuels policy

Christopher Yang, Ph.D.

  • Research Scientist, ITS-Davis
  • Infrastructure analysis of hydrogen and electricity for vehicle fuels
  • Role of transportation alternative fuels and advanced vehicles in reducing energy system greenhouse gas emissions
  • Energy system modeling for policy analysis

Junshan (Joshua) Zhang, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Edge intelligence
  • Reinforcement learning and imitation learning for vehicle automation
  • 5G and beyond for V2V and V2X based connected vehicles
Graduate Group TTP

H. Michael Zhang, Ph.D.

  • Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Transportation systems operations
  • Traffic flow theory
  • Traffic control
  • Dynamic traffic assignment
  • Intelligent transportation systems
Graduate Group TTP

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