Ishant Pandhari Bonde

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Ishant Bonde is a Graduate Research Student pursuing his PhD in Transportation Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. He completed his Master’s degree in Transportation Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in 2022. His research focuses on traffic safety, spatiotemporal analysis, and proactive safety management, with a particular emphasis on integrating advanced statistical modeling, Bayesian methods, and geospatial analytics to address complex transportation challenges. He is passionate about applying data-driven methodologies and emerging technologies to enhance road safety, and optimize transportation systems.

Aman Agrawal

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Aman is a graduate research student pursuing his PhD in Transportation Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. In the first semester Aman is working on two projects (1) Public Messaging and Behavior Change Systems for Circular Economies, and (2) Applying Induced Travel Study in Urban Areas in Tennessee.

Md Tawkir Ahmed

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Tawkir is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. He completed his master’s in Transportation Engineering from Tongji University in 2024. His research focuses on Traffic Control, including managing traffic flow, reducing congestion, and enhancing safety on expressways and freeways. He is passionate about leveraging advanced technologies to address modern transportation challenges, with key interests in real-time traffic status prediction, traffic simulation and modeling, connected and autonomous vehicles, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and deep learning and reinforcement learning for transportation applications. For more information, visit his website:www.mdtawkirahmed.com

Pawan Neupane

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Pawan is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. Currently Pawan is working on two projects (1) Informed Safety, Mobility, & Driver Comfort Enhancement Practices for Work Zones: Learnings from High Fidelity Data, and (2) Strategies for Improved Driver Behavior within Work Zones.

Veera Manikanda Prabhu N

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Veera is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. He completed his master's in civil engineering, specializing in Transportation Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science(IISc), Bangalore (2023). Before joining UofM, he worked as a Research Professional in Siemens (STSPL) Bangalore, India (2024). His research interests include Transportation Safety, Urban Transport Integration and Planning, and the advanced techniques for improving Driver Behavior.

Pranab Kar

Postdoctoral Researcher in Transportation Engineering

Dr. Pranab Kar is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil Engineering at the UofM, specializing in traffic operations and safety, driver behavior modeling, and ITS. He holds a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, where he focused on proactive safety assessment of rural highways using extreme value theory. At the UofM, Dr. Kar plays a key role in securing federal and state research grants for the C-TIER, and he is currently working on the NSF-CIVIC Federal Project, titled "SSC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Rural Transit Solutions for Enhancing Access & Connectivity for Blue Oval City Hub (REACH)"

Jaya Prakash Narayana Raavi

Research Data Analyst

Jaya Prakash Narayana Raavi is a data professional with experience in data engineering, analysis, and business intelligence, with a Master of Science in Data Science from the University of Memphis. Currently a Research Data Specialist at C-TIER, University of Memphis, they develop statistical models and perform exploratory data analysis to support research initiatives. They previously worked as a Data Analyst at the same institution, where they cleaned and processed over 2 million records, improving data accuracy by 95%. As a Business Intelligence Developer at Innovapath, INC, they designed and maintained web-based dashboards using React.js and created interactive data visualizations with D3.JS and Power BI. Their technical skills include Python, SQL, R, and SAS for data engineering, MySQL and MongoDB for databases, and Power BI, Tableau, and Excel for BI tools. They have also completed projects such as designing a database for referral management and creating a statewide land use dashboard for Tennessee. For more information visit his website: website

Avani Aravind

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Avani is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil engineering at the University of Memphis. She completed her master's in Transportation Systems Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay (2020). Before joining the University of Memphis she worked as a Project Engineer at the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre, India. Her research interest includes Public Transit Connectivity, Transportation equity and Accessibility, and Sustainable Urban transportation.

Sagarika Sharma

Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering

Sagarika is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Memphis. She completed her Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar (2018 - 2022).

Dr. Ali Raiahi Samani

Completed Degree: Ph.D. in Transportation

Dissertation: Commercial Motor Vehicles (CMV) Drivers’ Behavior in Transition from Automated to Manual Driving in Highly Automated Vehicles (level 4).

Currently: Travel Demand Modeler, ATG, Austin, Texas

Dr. Diwas Thapa

Completed Degree: M.S., and Ph.D. in Transportation

Dissertation: Uncovering Temporal Dynamics in Traffic Safety: Application of Duration-Based Models for Diagnostic and Predictive Analysis)

Currently: Data Analyst, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Dallas, Texas

Dr. Sowjanya Dhulipala

Position: Postdoctoral researcher

Currently: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bhubaneswar), School of Infrastructure

Dr. Gajanand Sharma

Position: Postdoctoral researcher

Currently: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Kharagpur), Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design and Management

Dr. Ishant Sharma

Completed Degree: Ph.D. in Transportation and Postdoctoral researcher

Dissertation: Consumers' adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) based on their social network

Currently: Assistant Professor, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Hyderabad, India

Dr. Suvin P.V.

Position: Postdoctoral researcher

Currently: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, India

Dr. Agnivesh Pani

Position: Postdoctoral researcher

Currently: Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-BHU, Varanasi, India

Jesse Simpson

Completed Degree: M.S. and Ph.D. in Transportation

Dissertation: The Adoption of Connected Autonomous Vehicles and Other Innovations by Freight Transportation Organizations

Currently: Civil Engineer at Huitt-Zollars

Santosh Bhattarai

Completed Degree: M.S. in Transportation

Thesis: Multidimensional Resource Allocation in Freight Transportation Planning: A Case Study of Tennessee

Currently: Associate Regional Planner at Fresno Council of Governments

Dr. Ahmadreza Talebian

Position: Postdoctoral researcher

Currently: Assistant Professor, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran

Zohora Sultana

Completed Degree: M.S. in Transportation

Thesis: Modeling frequency of rural demand response transit trips

Currently: Transportation Analyst, Oregon DOT

Khademul Haque

Completed Degree: Ph.D. in Transportation

Dissertation: Multi-Period Transportation Network Investment Decision Making Using Link Ranking and An Econometric Framework

Currently: CDM Smith

Afrid Sarker

Completed Degree: M.S. in Transportation

Thesis: Secondary Crashes: Identification, Visualization and Prediction

Currently: Caltrans

Mohamed Osman

Completed Degree: Ph.D. in Transportation

Dissertation: A Comprehensive Discrete Choice Analysis of Injury Severity in Roadway Work Zone Crashes

Currently: Tennessee Department of Transportation

Anteneh Yohannes

Completed Degree: M.S. in Transportation

Thesis: Allocation of transportatio resources

Currently: HNTB

Hossein Taghizad

Completed Degre: M.S.

Thesis: A Comprehensive Discrete Choice Analysis of Injury Severity in Roadway Work Zone Crashes

Currently: Software Engineer, Chicago

Sukanya Dasgupta

Completed Degree: B.S. in Transportation

Olivia Wiseman

Completed Degree: B.S. in Transportation