Internships

For High School Students

Transportation Research Internship Program (TRIP)

TRIP is for high school students potentially interested in engineering and those who want to investigate transportation issues. Students will be integrated into research projects and work alongside graduate students and professors, similar to many undergraduate research experiences. They will develop skills related to systems thinking, experimental design, data collection and analysis techniques, and modeling and simulation. The students will have the opportunity to explore applications of mathematics and to contribute to publishable research, which will be valuable for college applications.

Sample projects include:

Modeling and simulation evacuations due to hazardous materials incidents in Chicago,
Estimating travel time on I-66 when an incident occurs,
Detecting route deviations of hazardous materials vehicles for malicious intent,
Examining road capacity in school zones during student pick up and drop off and exploring the implications of parent behavior for city evacuations,
Examining and modeling the interactions of pedestrians and vehicles during special events, such as the Marine Corps Marathon, as well as typical daily traffic,
Modeling disasters and their impacts on the transportation system, and
Investigating congestion mitigation strategies.

The students should be reliable, self-motivated, mature, and intellectually curious. A strong foundation in mathematics and/or computer science would be advantageous but is not required. The students must be at least 16 years old.

The internship is based in the Virginia Tech Transportation Operations and Optimization Laboratory, located in Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center at 7054 Haycock Road, Falls Church. Field data collection takes place in the northern Virginia area. Computer and data collection resources are available to the students for research purposes.

Contact:

Pamela Murray-Tuite, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Virginia Tech
7054 Haycock Road
Falls Church, VA 22043
703-538-3764

'murraytu@vt.edu'

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