Transportation at Portland State University

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We inform transportation decision making through research, building the capacity of the transportation workforce, supporting the education of transportation professionals, and engaging students in research. 

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU) is an interdisciplinary center that elevates the voices and expertise of a wide range of backgrounds that provide a unique lens on transportation insight for vibrant communities. We support collaborative research and education programs for our faculty, partners, community members, and students. 

TREC is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI)PORTALBikePed Portal, and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research. Learn more about our transportation research and education programs. 

Our History at Portland State University

As Oregon's only urban public global research university, Portland State University offers tremendous opportunity to nearly 28,000 students from all backgrounds. Our mission to "Let Knowledge Serve the City" reflects our dedication to finding creative, sustainable solutions to local and global problems. In 1966, Dr. Walter H. Kramer founded the first transportation studies center in the Department of Marketing. After decades of investment in PSU's transportation studies, our faculty and staff expertise earned PSU a USDOT-funded a regional university transportation center (UTC) from 2006 - 2014. We have successfully competed for more federal grants and currently lead the National Institute for Transportation and Communities program– one of seven national university transportation centers. Our center and staff have grown far beyond the initial UTC grants, and now encompass a wide variety of programs.

Our Staff

Jennifer Dill, PhD
Director
Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning
503-725-5173 | jdill@pdx.edu
https://jenniferdill.net/
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Dr. Jennifer Dill is a professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University (PSU) and Director of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at PSU. TREC houses the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), which she also directs. NITC is a national university transportation center funded by the US Department of Transportation focusing on improving mobility for people and goods to build stronger communities. Dr. Dill also serves on the Board of Trustees for the TransitCenter, a New York-based foundation that works to improve public transit in cities across the U.S.

Professor Dill is an internationally known scholar researching the relationships between transportation, land use, health and the environment, focusing on active transportation. Before entering academia, Professor Dill worked as an environmental and transportation planner in California. That experience motivates her teaching and research, which aims to inform practice and policy. She has published extensively in peer-review journals and has served as principal investigator or co-PI on over $4.3M in research projects and over $28M in federal center funding. Her research has been covered by Wired, Governing, USA Today, the PBS NewsHour, Here and Now, Marketplace and the Atlantic. She has served on and chaired Transportation Research Board committees and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Transportation and Health, Transportation Research Record and the Journal of Transportation and Land Use.

Dr. Dill has a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley, an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a BS in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from UC Davis. She is also an aluma of the Eno Future Leaders program.


Hau Hagedorn
Associate Director

503-725-2833 | hagedorn@pdx.edu
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Hau is the Associate Director of TREC at Portland State University and is responsible for the day-to-day management, operations and provides overall direction for the TREC's peer-reviewed research and technology transfer programs, and shaping workforce development efforts. She actively participates in national efforts on conducting and implementing research. She also oversees programming and delivery of professional development workshops through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI). She is co-Chair of the TRB Conduct of Research Committee, Chair of the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC), and member of the Region 1 Area Commission on Transportation (R1ACT). Hau has over 20 years of public and private sector experience in transportation. In her spare time, she runs to escape juggling the busy lives of three active kids.  


Events & Office Coordinator
503-725-2896 | brebecca@pdx.edu

Rebecca is the Events & Office Coordinator for TREC, providing administrative support and managing logistics for TREC's events. She has a background in creative writing, and holds an M.F.A. from North Carolina State University. When she's not working, she likes to spend time reading and writing poetry, riding her bicycle, and snuggling with her cat. 


Basem Elazzabi, PhD
Senior Research Associate

elazzabi@pdx.edu

Basem is the head of programming and development for the PORTAL and BikePed Portal projects at TREC. He is responsible for maintaining and developing the database and the infrastructure of both projects. He also does various data analysis and visualization tasks. Basem received a PhD in Computer Science from Portland State University with a focus in database and data analysis. He also received his BS in Computer Science also from Portland State University. He has almost 20 years of experience in system analysis and development. His main interests are database systems, data analysis, distributed systems, and big data. His main research topics focus on how to facilitate data analysis for typical and non-technical data analysts. One of the main research topics that he works on is how to build the next generation data-analysis ecosystem in which institutions (government and private) can easily store their massive data and have easy access to data analysis tools to support and improve data-driven decision making.


Lacey Friedly
Communications Coordinator

503-725-8545 | rlacey@pdx.edu

Lacey is the communications coordinator for TREC. She connects with researchers, writes articles, and documents (through pictures, videos, and model towns) the value of the transportation research being done at TREC and through the NITC program. Before TREC, Lacey was the acquisitions editor for Dark Discoveries magazine. She also managed the editing department at Ooligan Press, Portland State University's student-run publishing house. She graduated from PSU in 2013 with a master's in book publishing. In her spare time Lacey enjoys swimming, reading, and making stop-motion animation videos. she/her/hers


Tammy Lee, PhD
Transportation Data Program Administrator

503-725-2884 | leetam@pdx.edu

Tammy is working on a variety of projects for TREC, including documentation, data synthesis, analysis, and visualization supporting ongoing work with PORTAL and Bike-Ped Portal. Tammy received a BS in Genetics & Plant Biology from UC Berkeley before earning a PhD in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences from WSU. Prior to joining TREC she worked as a data scientist for a political digital media consulting firm. When not working she's either hiding in the forest or experimenting in the kitchen.


John MacArthur
Sustainable Transportation Program Manager

503-725-2866 | jhmacart@pdx.edu
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Mr. John MacArthur is the Sustainable Transportation Program Manager at TREC at Portland State University and an instructor in civil and environmental engineering, teaching on new & emerging technologies in transportation. He is active in research related to sustainable and equitable transportation, particularly in the areas of emerging tech such as e-bikes, bike share, transit, and the relationship between transportation and public health. Mr. MacArthur is the Section Chair for Transportation Research Board’s AME00 Transportation and Society and a member of Innovative Public Transportation Services and Technologies (AP020). He received his BS in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and a MS in Environmental Health Sciences from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.


Nathan McNeil
Research Associate

Nathan McNeil is a Research Associate at Portland State University's Center for Urban Studies. He conducts research on impacts of active transportation and transit equity, on new bicycle infrastructure and programs on travel behavior and attitudes towards cycling, on shared-use mobility programs including carsharing and bike-share, and on the connection between land-use and transportation. He was Co-Principal Investigator on recent national studies of bike share equity (Breaking Barrier to Bike Share and National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs) and of protected bike lane implementations (Lessons from the Green Lanes). Nathan received a master of urban and regional planning from Portland State University (PSU) and studied history at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Prior to PSU, Nathan worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City as a performance auditor where he evaluated capital programs and contractors.

Transportation Researchers at PSU

Portland State University embraces interdisciplinary research by exploring the unique ways in which transportation intersects with so many aspects of our daily lives. Below are the core of our transportation research faculty and staff, but you can find our comprehensive list of contributors in our Researcher Directory.  

Jason Anderson, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Civil & Environmental Engineering

Jason Anderson is a research associate at Portland State University. Dr. Anderson’s current area of research include: transportation safety modeling, spatial econometrics and statistics, and big data analysis focusing on various concepts (e.g., traffic flow, travel time, freight commodity analyses, methodological approaches, etc.). Dr. Anderson’s methodological expertise offers unique opportunities to conduct research in various fields, including water resources and waste management, construction management, structural engineering, and social/behavior sciences. He is especially interested in emerging technologies and data fusion techniques as it pertains to smart vehicles, infrastructure, cities, and their impacts on safety.


Joseph Broach, Ph.D.
Researcher Modeler, Oregon Metro
Research Associate, College of Urban & Public Affairs

Joseph Broach is a ​Research Associate with the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), an Instructor in the School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, and a Senior Researcher and Modeler at Metro (MPO). H​is work primarily ​focuses ​on transportation data​, behavior,​ and modeling, and ​he ​helped design the ​Portland region's ​next-generation bicycle model in conjunction with Metro.​ 

Joe's research projects include Incorporate Emerging Travel Modes in the Regional Strategic Planning Model (RSPM) ToolTransferability & forecasting of the Pedestrian Index Environment (PIE) for modeling applications, and Travel Mode Choice Framework Incorporating Realistic Bike and Walk Routes.


Jennifer Dill, Ph.D.
Director, Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC)
Professor, Urban Studies and Planning
jdill@pdx.edu
Twitter | Website | Researcher Profile 

Dr. Jennifer Dill is a professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University (PSU) and Director of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at PSU. TREC houses the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), which she also directs. NITC is a national university transportation center funded by the US Department of Transportation focusing on improving mobility for people and goods to build stronger communities. Dr. Dill also serves on the Board of Trustees for the TransitCenter, a New York-based foundation that works to improve public transit in cities across the U.S. Professor Dill is an internationally known scholar researching the relationships between transportation, land use, health and the environment, focusing on active transportation. Before entering academia, Professor Dill worked as an environmental and transportation planner in California. That experience motivates her teaching and research, which aims to inform practice and policy. She has published extensively in peer-review journals and has served as principal investigator or co-PI on over $4.3M in research projects and over $28M in federal center funding. Her research has been covered by Wired, Governing, USA Today, the PBS NewsHour, Here and Now, Marketplace and the Atlantic. She has served on and chaired Transportation Research Board committees and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Transportation and Health, Transportation Research Record and the Journal of Transportation and Land Use. Professor Dill also serves on the Board of Trustees for the TransitCenter, a foundation that works to improve public transit across the U.S. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Dill worked as an environmental and transportation planner in California. Dr. Dill has a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley, an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a BS in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from UC Davis. She is also an aluma of the Eno Future Leaders program.

Notable research projects include Lessons from the Green Lanes: Evaluating Protected Bike Lanes in the U.S., Understanding Types of Cyclists Nationally, Pedestrian Observation and Data Collection Curriculum and more. Read a 2021 interview: Looking Back on Twenty Years of Transportation Research with Dr. Jennifer Dill.


Aaron Golub, Ph.D.
Director, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning
Professor, 
Urban Studies and Planning
agolub@pdx.edu
TwitterResearcher Profile

Dr. Golub is an associate professor and director of the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. His work focuses on the social equity impacts of current transportation planning practices – how people participate in planning, and who wins and loses from transportation plans and investments. Dr. Golub teaches courses on urban transportation policy, planning research methods, transportation finance and public transportation.

His research explores policy, finance, environmental justice, public transportation, sustainability, bicycle transportation, social change, the Distributional Effects of Regional Transportation Plans and Projects, Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation, and more.


Hau Hagedorn
Associate Director, Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC)

Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Hau Hagedorn is the Associate Director of TREC at Portland State University and is responsible for the day-to-day management, operations and provides overall direction for the TREC's peer-reviewed research and technology transfer programs, and shaping workforce development efforts. She actively participates in national efforts on conducting and implementing research. She also oversees programming and delivery of professional development workshops through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI). She is co-Chair of the TRB Conduct of Research Committee, Chair of the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC), and member of the Region 1 Area Commission on Transportation (R1ACT). Hau has over 20 years of public and private sector experience in transportation. 

Her research includes an investigation of the Policy Implications of ORS 366.514 - The Oregon Bike Bill and the ongoing development of the bicycle and pedestrian data clearinghouse BikePed Portal.


Sirisha Kothuri, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate, Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science

Sirisha Kothuri, Ph.D. is a senior research associate in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Portland State University. Dr. Kothuri’s primary research interests are in the areas of multimodal traffic operations, bicycle and pedestrian counting, and safety. Dr. Kothuri is the research co-chair of the Transportation Research Board’s Pedestrians Committee (ANF10) and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Data Subcommittee (ABJ 35(3)) and a member of Traffic Signal Systems committee. Dr. Kothuri received her BCE from Osmania University, India, MSCE from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge and Ph.D. from Portland State University.

Dr. Kothuri's research includes investigations into Incorporating Pedestrian Considerations into Signal TimingImproving Walkability Through Control Strategies at Signalized IntersectionsAddressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies and Improving Bicycle Crash Prediction.


Jenny Liu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning

Jenny Liu is an associate professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. She is an environmental and resource economist with a focus in transportation economics. Her research interests include the economics of alternative energy sources, links between transportation choices and environmental issues, the effects of physical infrastructure networks and social networks on the adoption of transportation technologies, and technology adoption and its effects on climate change, particularly within the urban and development contexts.

Dr. Liu's research has looked into Understanding the economic impacts of urban greenway infrastructureMeasuring the Impacts of Social Media on Advancing Public Transit, and the Economic and Business Impacts of Street Improvements for Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility.


John MacArthur
Sustainable Transportation Program Manager, Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC)
macarthur@pdx.edu

Mr. John MacArthur is the Sustainable Transportation Program Manager at TREC at Portland State University and an instructor in civil and environmental engineering, teaching on new & emerging technologies in transportation. He is active in research related to sustainable and equitable transportation, particularly in the areas of emerging tech such as e-bikes, bike share, transit, and the relationship between transportation and public health. Mr. MacArthur is the Section Chair for Transportation Research Board’s AME00 Transportation and Society and a member of Innovative Public Transportation Services and Technologies (AP020). He received his BS in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and a MS in Environmental Health Sciences from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

MacArthur is the Principal Investigator for TREC's electric bicycle research initiatives. His research also includes low-/no-emission vehicle infrastructure in Portland metro, as well as a climate change impact assessment for surface transportation in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Before joining the TREC staff, John was the Context Sensitive and Sustainable Solutions Program Manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation’s OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program.


Nathan McNeil
Research Associate, Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC)

Nathan McNeil is a Research Associate at Portland State University's Center for Urban Studies. He conducts research on impacts of active transportation and transit equity, on new bicycle infrastructure and programs on travel behavior and attitudes towards cycling, on shared-use mobility programs including carsharing and bike-share, and on the connection between land-use and transportation. He was Co-Principal Investigator on recent national studies of bike share equity (Breaking Barrier to Bike Share and National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs) and of protected bike lane implementations (Lessons from the Green Lanes). Nathan received a master of urban and regional planning from Portland State University (PSU) and studied history at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Prior to PSU, Nathan worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City as a performance auditor where he evaluated capital programs and contractors.

Nathan's research has looked into Evaluating Efforts to Improve the Equity of Bike Share SystemsContextual Guidance at Intersections for Protected Bicycle Lanes and Bicycle and Pedestrian Traffic Monitoring Data Quality, among others. He also worked on the FTA Manual on Pedestrian and Bicycle Connections to Transit, published in 2017.


Christopher Monsere, Ph.D.  
Department Chair & Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dr. Christopher M. Monsere is Professor and Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State University. Dr. Monsere's primary research interests are in design and operation of multimodal transportation facilities including user behavior, comprehension, preferences, and the overall safety effectiveness of transportation improvements. Dr Monsere is a member of ANF20, the Bicycle Transportation Committee, the past co-chair of the Transportation Research Board's Safety Data, Analysis, and Evaluation committee (ANB20) and a past member of the TRB Task Force to develop the Highway Safety Manual (ANB25T). Monsere received his BCE from the University of Detroit Mercy; his MSCE and Ph.D.with an emphasis in transportation from Iowa State University. Dr. Monsere is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Oregon.

Dr. Monsere's research efforts include Improving Walkability Through Control Strategies at Signalized IntersectionsImproving Adaptive Response Signal Control Performance, and Effective Design Treatments for Right-Turns at Intersections with Bicycle Traffic .


Avi Unnikrishnan, Ph.D.
Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Avi Unnikrishnan is a David Wedge Vision Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science at Portland State University, and member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Network Modeling Committee, Traffic Flow Theory Committee, and the ASCE Intermodal and Logistics Committee. Avi has contributed to Stochastic and Dynamic Hyperpath Equilibrium Models, Preventing End of Queue Accidents, and the development of a transportation undergraduate research fellowship, a program designed to equip engineering undergraduate students with critical thinking and research skills relevant to transportation engineering and planning with a livability theme.

His research projects include Statistical Inference for Multimodal Travel Time Reliability, the development of Real-Time Stochastic Matching Models for Freight Electronic Marketplace, and Methodologies to Quantify Transit Performance Metrics at the System-Level


Liming Wang, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning

Liming Wang is an assistant professor in PSU's Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning. He teaches courses in Travel Demand Modeling, Transportation and Land Use, and Data Analysis Methods. His research takes a data-driven approach to address challenging issues in planning, in particular those intersecting land use and transportation. His recent research projects include data integration techniques for transportation and land use modeling, development and evaluation of comprehensive performance measures for transportation and land use systems, and regional strategic planning tools.

Dr. Wang has conducted research on Continuous Data Integration for Land Use and Transportation Planning and ModelingEvaluating and Enhancing Public Transit Systems for Operational Efficiency, Service Quality and Access Equity, and the development of a data science course, Introduction to Scientific Computing for Planners, Engineers, and Scientists.

Our Graduate Research Assistants

Meet our current 2022 - 2023 Portland State University students working as graduate assistants for TREC staff and researchers. Meet past GRAs here, as well as our PSU transportation scholars and fellows.
 
Cameron Bennett
Advisor: John MacArthur

Cameron Bennett is a second-year masters student in transportation engineering. He was the recipient of a Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship presented by the U.S. Department of Transportation at the 2022 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. Cameron currently serves as president of the PSU student group ITE-STEP (Students in Transportation Engineering and Planning). His work as a graduate research assistant focuses on promoting and facilitating the use of active transportation as a tool for equity, livability, and economic development. He's working with John MacArthur on How Can E-bike Purchase Incentives Grow the E-bike Market?. Cameron is passionate about bicycle and pedestrian design, planning, and policy in urban environments.


Kyuri Kim
Advisor: Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil

Kyuri is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in urban planning at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. She is currently supporting Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil on two projects; one is the Division Transit Project, and the other is about Evaluation of Curb Extension Treatments for Pedestrian Comfort and Safety at Intersections. In the recent past, she supported Dr. Dill and Hau Hagedorn in transportation data analysis and visualization (including BikePed Portal and OHSU Census data), Dr. Dill and Nathan McNeil on the Research Roadmap for the AASHTO Council on Active Transportation, and other transportation research.
Jacqueline Krantz
Advisor: Lacey Friedly
 
Jackie is a second-year masters student in the Book Publishing program, and a project manager at PSU's Ooligan Press. She is supporting TREC communications including social media, graphic design, and copywriting, as well as disseminating results of research published by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a program of TREC.

 Jiahui Ma
Advisors: Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil
Jiahui is a third-year Ph.D. student in urban planning at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. She is currently supporting Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil on the Evaluation of Road User Comprehension and Compliance with Red Colored Transit Priority Lanes as well as analyzing data from the Breaking Barriers to Bike Share project
 
Prabhu Marappan
Advisors: Tammy Lee and Basem Elazzabi
Prabhu is currently pursuing his Master of Science in Computer Science from PSU. Before this he worked as a Software Engineer for 5 years in Backend Development, Infrastructure, System Design and Architecture for distributed web applications. He's an engineer looking to solve interesting engineering and data problems, and is currently supporting TREC's transportation data programs: PORTAL and BikePed Portal.
Gabriel Quiñones-Zambrana
Advisor: Hau Hagedorn
Gabriel is a first-year Ph.D. student in urban studies at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. Before this he worked in the private sector as a Transit and Transportation Planner, and in the public sector as the Director of a Planning Department in a municipality, for more than 8 years combined. Currently, he is supporting Hau Hagedorn with the Better Block PSU Program and a variety of other projects.
 

Contact Us

Contact us at asktrec@pdx.edu or call the front desk at 503-725-2896.

Our office is in the Fourth Avenue Building at PSU 1900 SW Fourth Ave., Suite 175. Need to send mail? Send to:
TREC
P.O. Box 751
Portland, OR 97207