Education Overview
The STC supports three fellowship programs in which students are required to actively participate in research projects. The fellowship programs are designed to recruit and retain students of the highest quality, to increase the number of students supported, and to increase the diversity of the pool of students in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Transportation Technology & Policy (TTP) programs, in addition to fostering research training.
Dissertation Fellowships
Dissertation fellowships support the research of Ph.D. students who have advanced to candidacy and are working on their own original research. The purpose of these fellowships is to support work that is not otherwise funded and to provide more freedom to PhD students to choose dissertation topics independent of the work of their dissertation chairs. Funding generally lasts no more than one year, although students can request an amount of time less than that. Calls for proposals are due April 1st and November 1st of each year, unless otherwise specified.
Awarded Dissertation Fellowships
Year 3 Dissertation Fellowship (doc)
Application information is on the Opportunities page
Program Award Fellowships
Program fellowships are used primarily to recruit incoming students in Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP), or other related graduate programs. All fellowship students, even those fully supported, are required to conduct research under the direction of a member of the faculty or research staff. These fellowships are awarded based on the application for admission and nominations by faculty, in consultation with the directors of the CEE and TTP programs. Only U.S. citizens or permanent residents are eligible for these fellowships.
Awarded Program Fellowships (Year 3)
Year 2 Program Fellowships (doc)
Undergraduate Research Fellowships
The 2010 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows, flanked by faculty mentors.
Outstanding students with upper-class standing are eligible to receive undergraduate research fellowships. The recipients will work part-time during the school year and/or full time during the summer on a research project directed by a member of the faculty or research staff. (See a list of appropriate faculty and researchers here.)
To be considered for a fellowship, the application must be received no later than April 15th.
Application information is on the Opportunities page
Transportation Courses
STC supports the development of new courses to complement the existing transportation curricula at UC Davis. Proposals are solicited each year, and the funding allocated based on the merits of the proposals by the STC Director and with the approval of the STC Executive Committee.
Proposals for new transportation courses are due by 5pm on May 1st.
Call for Proposal (doc)
FRG Budget Template (xls)
Courses offered in Fall 2011:
TTP 289A
Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation
Instructor: Bob Schneider
CRN: 81841 Tues/Thurs 12:10-2:00pm, 263 Olson, 4 units
ECI 165
Transportation Policy
Instructor: Gian-Claudia Sciara
CRN: 84589 Tues/Thurs 1:40 - 3:00pm 194 Young, 3 units
Recently Offered Courses:
ESP 198
Road Diet Seminar
Instructors: Susan Handy and Steve Tracy
Spring Quarter 2011
TTP 289A
Urban Economics
Instructor: Deborah Salon
Spring Quarter 2011
TTP 289A
Mobile Programming for Transportation Applications
Instructor: Mike Nicholas
Spring Quarter 2011
TTP 210
Introduction to Transportation Technology
Instructor: Nathan Parker
Winter Quarter 2011
Outstanding Student of the Year
Each year, the STC awards one student who excels in research, academic performance, and professionalism and leadership. Evidence of merit is based on faculty nomination and evaluation of submitted papers or reports. Academic performance is based upon courses completed and grades attained. Evidence of professionalism and leadership is measured in presentations at professional society meetings and symposia, and leaderships in student professional activities. Eligible candidates must have a GPA in excess of 3.25.
The winning student receives a $1,000 award and funds to cover the costs of attending an award ceremony in Washington, DC, during the annual winter meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).
For more information, please see our criteria.
STC Honors Two Oustanding Students for 2011-2012: Kristin Lovejoy and Alex Karner
Kristin is a PhD Student in the Transportation Technology and Policy program at the University of California, Davis. She received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Studio Art from Wellesley College in 2001 and a master’s degree in Transportation Technology and Policy from UC Davis in 2006 before entering the PhD program. For her dissertation, she is studying the mobility of carless households. She has created an innovative approach for addressing an important limitation of conventional travel surveys, namely that they provide data on trips made but not on trips not made. Her results will provide important insights into policies for better serving the needs of the not-insubstantial segment of the population without cars and may point to strategies for reducing car use among the substantial segment of the population with access to cars. As described by her advisor, she is “the kind of student we desperately need more of in the transportation field, and whether she pursues a career as an academic or a professional, she will contribute in notable ways to our efforts to address our pressing transportation problems.”
Alex is a PhD Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2006 and a master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis in 2008 before entering the PhD program. For his dissertation, he is evaluating the influence of environmental justice concerns on transportation planning and the implementation of climate change policy in California. His work has taken him well beyond the traditional boundaries of civil engineering and into the theories and methods of many different disciplines. As described by his advisor, he is “an exceptional scholar with a critical eye towards improving practice.” His research has the potential to help state, regional, and local agencies in better connecting their policies to their goals.
David McCollum STC Outstanding Student 2010-11
David McCollum has been selected as the STC’s 2010-11 Outstanding Student of the Year. He is completing a Ph.D. in the Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP). In his dissertation he is using various energy system modeling tools to study options for achieving long-term energy and climate objectives, and he is developing an economic/energy model for California to be used to analyze California’s greenhouse gas policies. His master’s thesis, chosen as the best thesis in transportation at UC Davis in 2007-08, was a comprehensive study of the likely effects of expanded use of coal on the U.S. rail system. He was chosen for this award for his remarkable accomplishments that point to an exceptional career as a leader in the field of transportation and energy. McCollum is also the recipient of a Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Transportation Fellowship and a Fulbright Full Research Grant to Germany, and was selected for the Young Scientist Summer Program (YSSP) at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and for internship programs at the Argonne National Laboratory and National Energy Research Laboratory.
Nathan Parker: STC Outstanding Student 2009-2010
Nathan is a Ph.D. student in the Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP) program and specializes in assessing the potential for greater use of biofuels in California and nation-wide. The STC awards this honor in recognition of his excellent performance in the classroom, his innovative and independent research program, and his demonstrated leadership potential.
As Prof. Joan Ogden said in her nomination letter, “Nathan has demonstrated excellence in all the criteria for the STC Student of the Year award: academic achievements, research excellence, and leadership and professionalism… I am confident that he will one day lead a group of researchers helping solve our nation’s transportation and energy problems.
His work has already significantly influenced the transportation and energy arena, furthering one of its most important debates: how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. One of Nathan’s first projects as a graduate student, a statistical analysis of gas pipeline transportation costs, was so clear and concise that it was adopted by the US Department of Energy Hydrogen program as the best review of this topic, and is used the basis for their models. Nathan’s Masters' thesis found low-cost solutions for transportation fuel production from crop wastes in California and showed that a widely-cited study was unduly pessimistic about this renewable energy option. Nathan was invited to speak about this work to a special seminar at the California Energy Commission, an unusual invitation for a graduate student. He is now participating in a national study of biofuel resources and economics with a team of researchers from National Laboratories and the US Department of Energy. Since arriving at UC Davis in 2003, Nathan has demonstrated leadership, such as when he started an ad-hoc research group of students and researchers on non-linear optimization methods among his peers, and he has managed to produce ten conference papers, four major technical reports, and four peer-reviewed journal publications, including articles recently published in top-tier journals.
Wayne Leighty: STC Outstanding Student 2008-2009
Wayne recently completed his Masters of Science in Transportation Technology and Policy and is now simultaneously pursuing a PhD and an MBA at UC Davis. Before coming to UC Davis, he completed dual degrees in environmental science and economics at Brown University, where he won numerous honors, and served for three years as Chief of Staff for an Alaskan State Senator, a position in which he worked on energy issues. Wayne’s master’s thesis “Modeling of Energy Production Decisions: An Alaska Oil Case Study,” models and analyzes the dynamic optimality of oil production decisions in Alaska, and assesses the effects of government tax and regulatory policy on production decisions and their optimality. He is currently working with the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program and as an emerging venture analyst with the Energy Efficiency Center at UCD Davis. He is an avid outdoorsman, whose activities include whitewater kayaking and rafting, sea kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing, and snowshoeing. He is passionate about using his skills and knowledge about energy, transportation, science, economics, and public policy to make a positive impact on the world.