Dr. Terry Yang is an Associate Professor (Transportation Engineering) in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Clark Faculty Fellow in the James Clark Engineering School at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Yang received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining UMD, Dr. Yang was an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah.

Dr. Yang's current research areas include AI/ML for transportation modeling, Quantum Computing, Traffic Operations, Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Traffic Safety, Data Mining, transportation planning, etc. He is the recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2021. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed research articles in journals and conferences. He is currently an Editorial Board member of Transportation Research, Part C,  the Managing Editor of ASCE Journal of Urban Planning and Development,  and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. He is also the Chair of the ASCE Artificial Intelligence for Transportation Committee. 

Dr. Yaobang Gong is a Research Assistant Professor in Transportation Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida in 2020. Over the past two years at UMD, he has conducted extensive research on MDOT SHA field staff, co-leading two MDOT SHA sponsored projects – one focused on FMTs and another on CHART responders. In addition, he has co-led more than ten research projects funded by the USDOT, FHWA, DOE, Utah DOT, and Florida DOT, covering topics such as traffic data analytics, survey analysis, traffic safety, road asset management, and transportation systems management.

Dr. Lei Cheng is a Faculty Assistant in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)-Maryland Transportation Institute (MTI) at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2025. His research interests focus on sensor data processing ( including sensor fusion, sensor calibration, and deep learning–based perception tasks such as object classification, detection, and multi-object tracking), as well as multimodal deep learning (including vision–language models). His work has broad applications in autonomous driving, intelligent transportation systems, and smart robotics. His research has been funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), Tucson DOT, and the Sony Research Award Program, among others.

Ms. Yi Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate

Education: M.S., Southeast University

Research Area: Data Mining and Privacy Protection, Machine Learning Application in Transportation

Mr. Yuan-Zheng Lei, Ph.D. Candidate

Education: M.S., Southwest Jiaotong University

Research Area: Machine Learning, Optimization, Transportation, Quantum Computing

Mr. Qiwei Zhang, Ph.D. Candidate

Education: M.S., University of Florida

Research Area: Human Dynamics and Energy Trajectory Modeling

Ms. Keunmin Cho, Ph.D. Candidate

Education: M.S., Ajou University

Research Area: Transportation Network Resiliency

Mr. Dianwei Chen, Ph.D. Candidate

Education: M.S., Ohio State University

Research Area: Reinforcement Learning, Autonomous Vehicle Control, Large Language Model

Ms. Yifan Chen, Ph.D. Student

Education: M.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research Area: Traffic Safety

Mr. Jihoon Kim, Ph.D. Student

Education: M.S., Korea Aerospace University

Research Area: AI Agent and Digital Twin for Transportation

Ms. Olivia Curtorillo, Ph.D. Student

Education: M.S., Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Research Area: TBD

Mr. Yufan Zhang, Ph.D. Student

Education: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Research Area: TBD

Mr. Ebrahim Nobakht, Ph.D. Student

Education: University of Colorado Denver

Research Area: TBD

Dr. Kaitai Yang, Ph.D.

Education: M.S., University of Florida

Dissertation Title: A Hybrid Framework For Modeling Surrounding-Vehicle Behavior For Evaluating Autonomous Vehicle Performance In Risk-Critical Driving Scenarios

Dr. Sayantan Tarafdar, Ph.D.

Education: M.S., Virginia Tech

Dissertation Title: Integrated Planning of Residential and Commercial Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: A Strategic Bi-Level Optimization and Queuing Framework Approach 

Dr. Bahar Azin, Ph.D., graduated in the Fall of 2022.

Dissertation Title: Integrated Charging Facility Planning and Incentive-based Demand Management for Electric Vehicles.

Dr. Qinzheng Wang, Ph.D., graduated in the Spring of 2022.

Dissertation Title: Adaptive and Multi-Path Progression Traffic Signal Control and Connected Automated Vehicle Trajectory Optimization under Mixed Traffic Environment

Dr. Zhao Zhang, Ph.D., graduated in the Spring of 2022.

Dissertation Title: Freeway Traffic Flow Modeling and Forecasting Using Physics-Guided Machine Learning.

* Best Doctoral Dissertation Award by TRB AED50 (Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Committee)