Matthew J. Huber Student Award

The Matthew J. Huber Student Awards are presented to University of Minnesota graduate students demonstrating outstanding academic achievement in engineering, science, and technology fields. The winners this year were Maziar Zamanpour, a master's student in civil engineering with an interest in transportation, and Tianyi Li, a doctoral candidate in transportation engineering.

Maziar Zamanpour is advised by Michael Levin, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering (CEGE). Levin saw Zamanpour defend his master’s thesis in December and is now guiding his work toward a Ph.D. “While finalizing his thesis on optimizing speed control of connected/automated vehicles around traffic signals, Maziar also started working on a new MnDOT red light warning running system initiative,” Levin said. “Simultaneously, he was a Teaching Assistant for a new class and took on yet another research project—learning and employing different skills for each endeavor.”

Tianyi Li has worked with assistant professor Raphael Stern, for over three years. “Tianyi’s work on physics-informed neural networks for traffic modeling will result in a better understanding of how traffic behaves, and how to efficiently control traffic flow,” Stern said. “Tianyi also exhibits an excellent teaching ability—combined with his intellectual horsepower and computational skills, this will make him a transportation leader in the future.”

The award is named in honor of the late Professor Emeritus Matthew J. Huber. This story was originally published by the Center for Transportation Studies.