University of Washington

Outreach Each year in the early spring, the University of Washington hosts a large, two-day event called Engineering Discovery Days. At Engineering Discovery Days, students and faculty from all UW engineering departments share their work with students, teachers, families and the community. This year the event was hosted in Friday, April 22, and Saturday, April 23. PacTrans hosted an informational booth outside where our staff representatives gave out PacTrans swag and generated interest among young students for transportation engineering. Then in the STAR lab, several of our researchers offered students the additional opportunity of experiencing some of the technologies we work with first hand. PhD candidates Ruimin Ke, Kris Henrickson, and John Ash showcased automated vehicle detection with UAVs, automated pedestrian identification technology, and stoplight technologies. PACTRANS SPONSORS NORTHWEST TRANSPORTATION CONFERENCE PacTrans is resolved in its mission to produce practical and applied research, and equip our students for a robust and thoughtful career in transportation engineering. For this reason, PacTrans co-sponsored and co-organized this year's Northwest Transportation Conference. This past March 15 through 17, Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Transportation hosted the biennial conference on OSU's campus in Corvallis, Oregon. With more than 400 transportation professionals from throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in attendance, this event touts being the Northwest's premiere transportation event, "Since its inception in 1949, the Northwest Transportation Conference has served as a forum for engineers, designers, builders, operators, planners, and other transportation officials." ODOT Research Manager and PacTrans External Advisory Board Member, Michael Bufalino, chaired this year's event. The theme was, "Transportation Tools You Can Use on the Job." Thus the 20+ sessions, discussions, and events offered throughout the conference were all geared at equipping the professionals in the audience with practical, applicable knowledge and tools that they could take home and begin using today. Among the presenters and moderators were PacTrans associate director David Hurwitz (OSU), PacTrans PI Michael Olsen (OSU), and PacTrans PI Haizhong Wang (OSU), as well as student researchers Alireza Kashani and Kamilah Buker. OSU UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING EXPO With the huge domestic shortfalls in interested, engaged, and suitably trained STEM sector professionals, one of the most significant tasks of a University Transportation Center is to help cultivate enthusiasm in the transportation engineering field. This happens at all levels from primary school age children all the way up to undergraduate college students. A very effective method of cultivating such interests are to expose young children to the many great accomplishments an engineer can aspire to. For example, each year Oregon State University hosts an undergraduate engineering expo. This past May 20, 2016, nearly 200 projects were on display at Oregon State University's Kelley Engineering Center during the 17th annual Undergraduate Engineering Expo. The event, which this year was included as part of the revived da Vinci Days festival, gives engineering students a chance to share their senior capstone projects with hundreds of visitors, including local high school students. PACTRANS STAR LAB PARTICIPATES IN UW ENGINEERING DISCOVERY DAYS 27 2014-2015 Annual Report

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