It was my pleasure to "hood" six master of science graduates yesterday June 11, 2016: Kaylinn Pell, Krista Purser, Bobby Sidhu, Alex Chambers, Edward Tang and Simon Qin. I have thoroughly enjoyed working (and biking) with you all, learned a lot from you and I know that you're going to continue to accomplish great things as you move forward. More significantly I am proud of all of you as people and admire your determination and humanity. I hope we'll stay in touch--see you in Albuquerque in a month for the ITE District 6 meeting! I also was honored to attend the MCRP graduation ceremony, and I am grateful to all of the dual master's degree students for contributing so much to my courses and to the sense of community within the transportation program at Cal Poly. My experience was greatly heightened through my interaction with the two cohorts of dual degree students and I also know you will all continue to do great work as you move forward. Thank you all!
I was very pleased to participate in the International Symposium on Improving Highway Performance (ISEHP) in Berlin, Germany, June 14-16, 2016. In addition to providing a Welcome Address at the Plenary Session, I also presented three papers: Preparing a Roadmap for Connected Vehicle/Cooperative Systems Deployment Scenarios: Case Study of the State of Oregon, USA (with co-authors Haizhong Wang, Tony Knudson and Kevin Carstens); Developing a Multimodal Transportation System Simulation Manual: Impacts on Future Transportation Performance (with co-authors Brandon Nevers, George List and Mehdi Mashayekhi); and Evaluation of Driver Compliance to Displayed Variable Advisory Speed Limit Systems: Comparison between Germany and the U.S. (with co-authors Gary Riggins, Williams Ackaah and Martin Margreiter). Williams Ackaah also presented me with his nearly finished Ph.D. dissertation for my review (I am one of his committee members) and was able to enjoy dinner with great friends Klaus Bogenberger and Alex Skabardonis. Berlin is a great city--I also enjoyed a recital by pianist Yuja Wang at the Berlin Philharmonie, and saw a controversial version of Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio at the Berlin Opera.
