Director
Dr. David Hurwitz, Professor of transportation engineering, conducts research in the areas of transportation safety, human factors, traffic control devices, bicyclists and pedestrians, commercial motor vehicles, and connected and automated vehicles. In particular, Dr. Hurwitz is interested in the consideration of user behavior in the design, evaluation, and innovation of surface transportation systems. Dr. Hurwitz has conducted dozens of driving and bicycling simulator studies. Recent experiments have involved studies of commercial motor vehicle operator behavior in roundabouts, networked studies of bicycles and passenger cars operating under bicycle rolling stop laws at stop-controlled intersections, and the evaluation of eHMI configurations to improve bicyclist interpretation of highly automated vehicles.
Collaborating Researchers
Dr. Hisham Jashami, Assistant Professor (Senior Research) of transportation engineering, develops robust design standards by using big data and machine learning to improve the understanding of road user behavior in response to roadway and traffic characteristics. Dr. Jashami leverages naturalistic driving, micro/macro simulation, and cash data along with a significant array of field data collection tools to answer complicated transportation questions. By employing experimental design and complex modeling techniques, his work aims to advance the state of the art in autonomous vehicle technologies, ensuring improved safety standards in transportation engineering. Dr. Jashami has contributed to numerous driving and bicycling simulator studies as well as novel networked simulator studies.
Dr. John Gambatese, Professor of construction engineering management, has technical and research interests in construction safety, work zone design, constructability, sustainability, design-construction interface, temporary construction structures, construction site operations, and systems engineering. Current and recent research projects address issues related to construction worker health and safety, design of construction and maintenance work zones, Prevention through Design (PtD), formwork risk and reliability, and the impacts of lean design and construction on safety. Dr. Gambatese has contributed to the driving simulator study of mobile work zone barriers on vehicle traffic in work zones as well as the evaluation of highway worker safety and the development of a novel commercial motor vehicle simulator.
Dr. Kristin Macuga, Associate Professor of psychology, conducts research on how people use and integrate sensory information to control real-world behaviors, with the goal of improving performance, safety, instruction, and interface design. She utilizes a range of complementary experimental techniques, such as immersive virtual reality (VR), driving simulations, instrumented vehicles, psychophysical and physiological measures, surveys, and usability metrics, and current research topics include examining how pedestrians interact with automated vehicles, how neighboring pedestrians influence evacuation behavior, and how AI-aided systems can assist with decision making under uncertainty.
Dr. Salvador Hernandez, Associate Professor of transportation engineering, specializes in freight transportation and the trucking industry, focusing on enhancing safety and efficiency through advanced analytics and risk assessment. His research includes evaluating transportation systems, optimizing logistics under uncertainty, and improving infrastructure resilience. Dr. Hernandez collaborates on large truck simulator studies, particularly examining gap acceptance at roundabouts, to advance our understanding of heavy vehicle dynamics and safety in complex traffic scenarios. His work aims to integrate technological advancements into the logistics sector, promoting safer and more effective freight transportation systems.
Dr. Haizhong Wang, Professor of transportation engineering, conducts research in the areas of traffic flow modeling and simulation from both deterministic and stochastic perspectives, transportation system planning and travel behavior analysis, traffic system control and optimization, intelligent transportation system in particular the impacts of connected and autonomous vehicle on traffic operation and infrastructure management, emergency evacuation and disaster response in particular the evacuee decision-making behavior under emergent scenarios through agent-based modeling and simulation, and post-disaster transportation network resiliency and recovery problems. Dr. Wang has contributed to driving simulator studies of vehicle automation and bicycling simulator studies related to capacity modeling.
Dr. Michael Olsen, Professor of geomatics engineering, conducts research involving terrestrial laser scanning, remote sensing, GIS, geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, hazard mitigation, and 3D visualization. He teaches geomatics and geotechnical engineering courses at OSU where he has developed new courses in 3D laser scanning, Digital Terrain Modeling, and Building Information Modeling. Dr. Olsen has contributed to driving simulator studies considering the incorporation of LIDAR point clouds into simulator scenarios and the evaluation of alternative i-signs.
Dr. Chris Parrish, Professor of geomatics engineering, focuses on advanced remote sensing and photogrammetric tools and technologies, including full-waveform lidar, topographic-bathymetric lidar, hyperspectral imagery, sensor fusion, and UAVs for management, science and engineering applications, with particular focus on the coastal zone. Dr. Parish contributed to a driving simulator study considering the distraction potential of drones operating near roadways.