The Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is pleased to announce that Mike McQueen, a first year master's student studying transportation, has been awarded the Young Professionals in Transportation StreetLight Graduate Fellowship. He was also one of seven Portland State University students to be awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship at this year's annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

Young Professionals in Transportation (YPT) is an international nonprofit coalition of organizations which helps provide professional development, fellowship, and networking for young professionals in the transportation field. This is the first year that YPT has offered the Graduate Fellowship award, thanks to a partnership with StreetLight Data, a transportation analytics firm. Mike was selected from an international pool of applicants.

The award includes a plaque, one year of YPT membership, a monetary scholarship, and one month of access to StreetLight Insight. Insight is a platform that transforms anonymous, archival location data derived from millions of mobile devices into useful metrics that describe travel patterns. Mike plans to use the StreetLight Insight to assist his research endeavors.

Mike's research interests include e-bikes, bike share, and first mile/last mile travel behavior, as shared in his application for the YPT Fellowship:

"After graduation, I plan to pursue a position that enables me to take an active role in positively influencing people to choose active transportation modes with complementary transit rather than single occupancy vehicles. I would like to work with data to determine which policy or infrastructure changes make a significant impact to this end, such as secure bicycle parking facilities at transit stops, separated bicycle and scooter lanes, and incentive programs. Eventually, I would also like to help de-silo transportation and land use planning. I believe that these two practices need to continually grow closer together and mature to include active modes and affordable housing to make it practical for citizens to become less auto dependent. I believe it is imperative that we prevent active transportation and fixed route transit modes from being defunded and abandoned in order to preserve public health and the environment"

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and young professionals through education.