Alumni

Haena Kim graduated in 2020 with a Ph.D. in Science in Civil Engineering, Transportation Track. As a student she served as a research assistant in both the Urban Freight Lab and the Human Factors and Statistical Modeling Lab, and coordinated the SCTL Student Research Group.

Polina Butrina graduated in 2018 with a Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Transportation Track. She also served as a research assistant for the Urban Freight Lab and wrote her Master’s thesis on Preparing cities for package demand growth: predicting neighborhood demand and implementing truck VMT reduction strategies. As a student Polina worked on several research projects in the Urban Freight Lab: Evaluation of Bicycle Safety Impacts of Seattle’s Commercial Vehicle Load Zones, which identified conditions related to truck parking that lead to collisions, including operational,...

Kelly Pitera is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She participated in the Valle Exchange program to Norway as a UW graduate student, which ultimately sparked her interest in living abroad. She's an outdoor enthusiast who researches road design and issues related to transport, mobility, and infrastructure in urban areas.

Derik is the Director of Economic Research and Forecasting at Mercator International headquarters in Kirkland, Washington. As a graduate student in Geography, he pursued interdisciplinary research in freight transportation with Dr. Anne Goodchild in Civil & Environmental Engineering. His advice to students is to engage in the interactive process of building a knowledge community with peers and faculty.

Matt credits his UW research experience and his participation in the Presidential Management Fellowship program as the launching point for his career in transportation policy. He applies his expertise to his current role as Policy Manager for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C.