Fresno State Transportation Institute
FSTI News - 2019
Dr. Christian Wandeler’s project, “Youth Design the Future of Transportation for Their Community,” has received media attention from KSEE Television station. KSEE, virtual channel 24, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Fresno, California, United States. The Fresno State Transportation Institute works to improve transportation issues all around the Central Valley. Now, the institute is helping kids imagine new ways to get to class. “The number one issue that came up was safety, safety,” said teacher Efrain Tovar.
Students from Abraham Lincoln Middle School in Selma are among a group of students involved in a big project that could one day change how they get to and from school. For more information, WATCH VIDEO.
The High-Speed Rail tour was a great opportunity to see the High-Speed Rail’s construction, meet with the rail engineers on the site, and learn about the challenges of the right of the way and purchasing the private lands that are on the way of the High-Speed Rail path.
Dr. Christian Wandeler organized an event for the Selma Middle School students to visit the Fresno State and present their presentations on 12/12/2019. Dr. Wandeler’s project, “The Fresno State Transportation Challenge,” was founded through FSTI CSUTC Innovative Projects. To see the final report, please click here.
Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro and the University of Wuppertal (Germany), recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) committing to exploring international joint education and research programs in transportation engineering over the next five years. Established in 1972, the University’s name in German is “Bergische Universität Wuppertal” has a total of three campuses located in Wuppertal. Similar to Fresno State, Wuppertal offers a variety of programs from arts and humanities to mathematics and engineering. The University of Wuppertal has one of the largest transportation engineering programs in Germany.
The transportation engineering students shared more information about transportation engineering related topics with kids. They did this through presentations to address the questions from the kids or the challenges that kids saw in their community (e.g., pedestrian safety).
The 2019 Fresno Regional Transportation Innovations Summit was a joint production of Fresno State Transportation Institute and Fresno Council of Governments, designed to provide an opportunity for hundreds of residents, professionals and stakeholders to become familiar with the latest in advanced, clean transportation technology through an up-close and personal experience. It also brought together businesses and individuals that have invested in cleaner transportation technology, to share their successes and challenges with the community. To see the details of the event, please click here.
Ms. Roshanak Farshidpour is selected to receive the 2019 Outstanding Civil Engineer Student Award by the ASCE San Francisco Section! This is her second award in this category, after the one awarded by the ASCE Fresno Chapter. Roshanak is also a team-member of the 2019 Outstanding Research Project led by Dr. Nazari, who will accept the award in the same ceremony. She has also doubled this award, as she was a team-member of another 2019 Outstanding Research Project led by Dr. Tehrani and selected by the ASCE Fresno Chapter. She will be recognized at the Annual Section Meeting taking place on September 12th in the Historic Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. Ms. Farshidpour begins her master program at UCLA this Fall.
Dr. Maryam Nazari's project has been selected for the Outstanding Research Project award of the ASCE San Francisco Section! She and her research team aimed to investigate the application of tire-derived aggregates (TDA) in combination with expanded clay (EC) aggregates in precast concrete slabs in road pavements and bridge decks serving non-auto traffic, such as bicycle routes. Given that TDA is a recycled, durable, and economically-efficient material, this project aimed to enhance its usage and its ability to increase the sustainability of such transportation infrastructure, along with attempting to influence future decisionmaking on the rehabilitation and maintenance of such roads. To see the report, please click Here.
The goal of his research was to study how improving regenerative braking strategies affects energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in electric vehicles. To see his presentation, please click Here.
California State University, Fresno and the University of Colorado, Denver presented an innovative system called Business+ Commute Optimization System (B+COS) at Fresno Council of Governments (Fresno COG). The system can identify the optimal selection of business commute alternatives to minimize negative environmental impacts and commute time and cost.
Dr. Tawfik and his colleagues from Fresno State Transportation Institute had a presentation about transportation engineering for elementary school students.
FSTI is pleased to announce that Dr. Maryam Nazari’s research assistant (undergraduate) student, Mr. Faiaz Rahman, was awarded the Outstanding Oral Presentation in Engineering at the 40th Central California Research Symposium (CCRS) this year. He presented the FSTI Project at CCRS. Very well done!
FSTI is pleased to have Dr. Shahab Tayeb working on the security of connected and autonomous vehicles project! To read more about his research and achievements, please click here.
The Fresno State Transportation Institute supported a pilot study of the “Fresno State Transportation Challenge” with an innovation grant to test ways to do outreach in schools and engage the community. The goal is for the kids to learn about transportation, about transportation-related careers, and practice their 21st-century skills by solving a transportation-related issue in their community. We brought in university engineering students to support the K-8 students in their work on the transportation-related project. We taught them an agile mindset and eduScrum to solve complex issues, and then apply it to improve their community. The project members worked with the students over a time span of 8 weeks, and the culminating event was the presentation of their work to the community to advocate for the needs of children and to present their work at Fresno State to other researchers supported by the Fresno State Transportation Institute.