We're proud to announce Portland State University's transportation scholarship recipients for the 2025/26 academic year! Scholarships are awarded by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at PSU, as well as by local transportation organizations. These awards reflect the excellence and impact of transportation students at PSU, whose work reaches beyond the classroom to impact the daily lives of real people in and around our region. Learn more about each scholarship winner below, and join us in congratulating these students on their outstanding accomplishments in transportation.

TREC Scholars

Each year, through our Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) program, TREC offers a range of scholarships to assist students pursuing equitable, sustainable, and multimodal transportation. Four PSU students were awarded TREC scholarships for the 2025/26 academic year: Grace Alston, Jesus Mendoza, Elias Peters, and Gabr…

Afroza Hossain Misty graduated from Portland State University in 2024 with a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) degree. She now works as an Associate Planner for the City of Columbia, South Carolina. During her time at PSU,  she was a student employee of PSU's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), where she contributed to transportation research projects by managing survey packaging, online data entry, and data validation processes. She also served as a Mayor Policy-Innovation Fellow for the City of Beaverton, Oregon in 2024.

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What do you do in your current role, and what does a typical day look like?

In my current role as an Associate Planner for the City of Columbia, SC, I get to wear a lot of hats, which makes the work really exciting. I’m the point of contact for our active transportation initiatives, so I manage projects like quarterly bike…

New research from Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) shows that transit-oriented developments (TODs) in the Portland metro area generate far fewer car trips than standard estimates suggest—especially at sites that include affordable housing.

A 2025 report, "Portland Metro Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs): 2024 Resident Survey Findings (PDF)," builds on a long-running PSU study tracking TOD residents since 2005. Led by Nathan McNeil, Jennifer Dill, and Kyuri Kim, the research surveyed residents at TODs built between 2018 and 2023 across eight Oregon cities: Portland, Beaverton, Cornelius, Milwaukie, Gresham, Tigard, Hillsboro, and Happy…

A strong, diverse workforce is key to attracting and keeping the talent needed for Oregon’s expanding infrastructure projects. A new report from Portland State University (PSU) reveals significant strides in diversifying Oregon's construction workforce and improving apprenticeship completion rates.

Led by sociology professors Maura Kelly and Lindsey Wilkinson, and funded by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), the study highlights how targeted services and pre-apprenticeship programs are helping recruit, train, and retain a workforce that reflects Oregon’s communities.

The report, "Evaluation of the Highway Construction Workforce Development Program (PDF),"  offers practical recom…

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU) has been teaching a professional workshop on Comprehensive Bikeway Design since 2009. Our 2025 workshop just wrapped up, with one of the largest groups we've had so far—twenty practitioners from fifteen different U.S. states—who came to Portland to learn from local experts the ins and outs of designing a complete bicycle network. Check out some photos from the week.

"The workshop allows us to showcase the work that has been done, and is being done, in Portland to innovate and improve bicycle safety," said John MacArthur, the lead instructor of the workshop. Over the years, workshop participants have hailed from almost every s…