Four Mānoa Students Awarded Eisenhower Fellowships for Transportation Research

Four students from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have been named recipients of the 2024-2025 Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships. This prestigious award, administered by the Federal Highway Administration, aims to encourage students to pursue careers in transportation and research, helping develop the next generation of transportation professionals.

The College of Engineering at UH Mānoa facilitated the local competition, with the awards totaling $31,000. Recipients include undergraduate and graduate students from diverse fields—civil engineering, architecture, urban planning, and computer science.

Here are the awardees and their research:

• Ruimin Lin receives an $8,500 fellowship to explore equity in public transit services in Honolulu using open-source data. A junior in Civil Engineering, Lin also interns with SSFM’s Traffic Group. Dr. Roger Chen is advising her project.
• Dingyi Liu was awarded $10,000 to assess the relationship between zoning and walkability in Honolulu, under the guidance of Dr. Suwan Shen. Liu is a Master of Urban and Regional Planning student and a research assistant with Hawaiʻi Sea Grant.
• Paul Mullins earned a $7,000 fellowship to investigate design strategies for improving transportation accessibility for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. Mullins, advised by Dr. Kevin Nute, is a Master of Architecture student at the School of Architecture.
• Myra Angelica Ortigosa received $5,500 to study statistical data analysis for traffic signal control. She is a junior in Computer Science working under the mentorship of Dr. Kyungim Baek.

The program not only provides financial support but also offers Fellows the opportunity to participate in the upcoming Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. The event will take place January 5–9, 2025 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.