UGPTI Staff and Ph.D. Student Papers Selected

Papers written by several UGPTI students and staff members were recently selected for presentation at national meetings.

Ph.D. student Chris Enyinda presented "Managing value chain through lean supply chain logistics: A comparison of military and commercial organizations" to the American Society of Business and Behavioral Sciences 14th annual conference Nov. 8 in Las Vegas, NV. The paper was also published in the conference proceedings.

Enyinda returned to Las Vegas in January to present another paper at the Society of Advancement of Management's 2007 International Business Conference. The paper, "Mitigating and Managing Global Supply Chain Risks and Security: Leveraging RFID Technology," was also published in the conference proceedings.

Ph.D. student Subhro Mitra's paper, "Analyzing satellite imagery to develop freight generation data" was selected in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' Geographic Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T) 2007 Student Paper Contest. He will present his paper March 26, at the GIS-T Symposium in Nashville, TN. The paper will also be published on the GIS-T website.

In addition to his GIS-T paper, Mitra was also selected to present his paper, "Analyzing the effects of spring highway load restrictions on North Dakota's agricultural freight flows" at the 86th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in January in Washington, DC.

The TRB Annual Meeting is the nation's largest gathering of transportation professionals with more than 2,800 presentations in 500 sessions addressing topics of interest to policymakers, administrators, practitioners, researchers and representatives of government, industry and academic institutions from around the world.

Shawn Birst, associate research fellow with the UGPTI's Advanced Traffic Analysis Center presented "Comparison of Traffic Simulation Models with HCM 2000 Methodology Using Various Traffic Levels Under Pretimed Signal Control" at the Transportation Research Board meeting. His paper was one of a series of papers that looked at measuring traffic signal control performance and integrating those measures into traffic simulations.

Associate research fellow Xinyu (Jason) Cao presented three papers at the national TRB meeting. His paper, "Examining the impacts of residential self-selection on travel behavior: methodologies and empirical findings" evaluated various approaches to studying how residents' predispositions toward various land use configurations and travel modes affect their choice of where to live. The research was conducted to provide improved perspective on how the actual environment influences their travel behavior. His other papers were: "Do changes in neighborhood characteristics lead to changes in travel behavior? A structural equations modeling approach" and "Gender-role based differences in time allocation: A case study of Shenzhen, China."

New Staff at UGPTI

Denise Brown joined the UGPTI as the new LTAP administrative secretary. She has more than 15 years of administrative experience. She was previously with Sheridan County as deputy auditor and most recently with the Office of Management and Budget as payroll specialist. She is a member of the National Managers Association and is pursuing her bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Mary.

Xinyu (Jason) Cao is an associate research fellow with the UGPTI's Small Urban & Rural Transit Center. Cao received a Ph.D. degree in the area of transportation planning and engineering from the University of California - Davis. His dissertation focused on the causal relationship between the built environment and personal travel choice. Coming from a developing country, Xinyu is aware of the importance of public transit systems, especially to a transportation-disadvantaged population.

Tracey Dahl is an accounts and grants technician with the UGPTI. She was previously employed by Lindsay-Ecowater in Moorhead and has operated a small bookkeeping business out of her home for 10 years.

Kevin Ketcher is the supervisor for the students in the DOT Support Center's Information Technology Center. He also works at creating, maintaining and updating programs and maintains the server and network. He has also been involved in developing a dynamic online survey system. He earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from NDSU in 2006 and is working toward a graduate certificate in software engineering from NDSU.

David Levi brings more than 24 years of transportation experience to the UGPTI. Levi was previously with the NDDOT. David is the new LTAP program manager. For the past 20 years, his career focus has been to provide technical services to both DOT employees and local government agencies. Those services included development of departmental construction and maintenance specifications, construction of department facilities, development of maintenance equipment specifications, engineering studies and evaluation of truck size and weight issues. He earned an associate degree in civil engineering technology from the N.D. State College of Science in Wahpeton, ND.

Dustin Ulmer is originally from LaMoure, ND. He was hired in January as a Web technician. He was previously a graduate research assistant with SURTC. He earned a bachelor's degree in 2003 from NDSU and is continuing to work on his MBA.

Carol Wright joined the staff of the Small Urban & Rural Transit Center as associate director of training and outreach. She has more than 12 years of experience as the executive director of public transportation for a multi-county project in central North Dakota where she managed all aspects of public transit including rural transit, specialized transit, Dial-a-Ride and contracted services. Her responsibilities there included planning, operations and fiscal management and supervision of 57 full- and part-time employees. Wright has also served as an independent consultant in marketing and development for planners, developers, architects and contractors. She has served as a trainer and keynote speaker for national, state and local conferences for the past 17 years.