C2SMART congratulates Jingqin Gao, Ph.D., who was recently awarded the ITE Met Section 2019 Dr. Louis J. Pignataro Memorial Transportation Education Award. The award is presented annually to an Institution of Transportation Engineers (ITE) member demonstrating outstanding performance in their studies or in teaching. The awardee must have already contributed to, or shown the potential for contributing to, the Metropolitan Section of New York and New Jersey, and to the practice of the transportation profession (i.e., traffic engineering, transportation engineering, or transportation planning).

Jingqin (Jannie) Gao recently completed her Ph.D. in Transportation Planning and Engineering at NYU Tandon and, having worked on several projects as a research assistant at C2SMART, will continue to work on Center research efforts as a Research Associate. Her research interests include simulation modeling, data-driven and machine learning approaches to transportation, emerging technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicle applications to help visually impaired people, and transportation economics. She is the former president of NYU’s joint Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS) Student Chapter during 2018-2019, through which she has organized various company visits, tech talks, women in transportation events and the 2019 ITE Northeastern District Traffic Bowl. In addition, Jingqin is the co-director of TransportationCamp NYC 2020,  an unconference bringing together 300+ transportation professionals annually in the city of New York.

This was a very competitive year for the award; the award committee received four student and two faculty member nominations, all with outstanding academic and leadership credentials. The award, to be presented at a Spring ITE Met Section Dinner meeting, will include a plaque with Dr. Pignataro’s image and a check for $1,000. This award will be an incentive towards participation in the ITE Met Section and/or ITE District 1 activities.