Research Team

Dr. Jason Hawkins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Calgary. His expertise has expertise in travel behaviour, transportation demand modeling, spatial econometrics, and life-cycle assessment. Dr. Hawkins is a member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Traveler Behavior and Values Committee. He is also a board member on the Zephyr Foundation for open transportation analysis. Dr. Hawkins received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2021, for which he received the Eric Pas Award from the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR). He holds M.Sc. (2016) and B.Sc. (2014) degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Calgary. Dr. Hawkins completed postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (2021-2024).

Potential Graduate Students

The TECH Group is always looking for curious scholars to conduct transdisciplinary research in methods and empirics related to sutainable infrastructure development and household choice. Funding programs include the NSERC Graduate Programs for Master’s and Doctoral students, the SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the China Scholarship Council, and other funded opportunities. If you have received funding from these programs (or plan to apply), please send me an email if you are interested in the TECH Group and the University of Calgary. Please also check your eligibility prior to emailing me if you plan to apply.

We are particularly interested in students with transdisciplinary research interests in policy studies or planning. See the University of Calgary Transciplinary Research in Policy tudies website for more details.

Research Associates

	Name	About

| | Sam Pollock | Sam is a Ph.D. student in transportation engineering at the University of Calgary - co-supervised with Dr. Lina Kattan. Sam is an NSERC PGS-S scholar. He received his M.Sc. in transportation engineering and B.Sc. in civil engineering from the University of Calgary. He is working on multi-use path design in Calgary using choice experiments and analytic models. |

Graduate Students

	Name	About
	Sam Pollock	Sam is a Ph.D. student in transportation engineering at the University of Calgary - co-supervised with Dr. Lina Kattan. Sam is an NSERC PGS-S scholar. He received his M.Sc. in transportation engineering and B.Sc. in civil engineering from the University of Calgary. He is working on multi-use path design in Calgary using choice experiments and analytic models.
	Mohammed Abuhadrous	Mohammed is an M.Sc. student in transportation engineering at the University of Calgary - co-supervised with Dr. Lina Kattan. Mohammed received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering from XXX. He is working on EV charging station planning for multi-unit dwellings in Calgary considering travel patterns and grid constraints.
	Hania Afzal	Hania is a Ph.D. student in engineering policy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her M.Sc. in Economics from IBA Karachi and her B.Sc. in Economics from Quaid-I-Azam University. Prior to joining UNL, Hania was a researcher at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). She is currently working on electric vehicle adoption in the United States.
	Omid Armantalab	Omid is a Ph.D. student in transportation engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology and his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Kharazmi University. He is currently working on Bayesian statistical representations of transportation accessibility for equity and Justice40 applications.
	Mohammad Elayan	Mohammad is a Ph.D. student in transportation engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received both his M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology. Mohammad spent a decade working in the transportation industry in the UAE.
	Donya Negahbani	Donya is an M.Sc. student in transportation engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Tehran.

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Undergraduate students at the University of Calgary are encouraged to reach out to Dr. Hawkins about research opportunities. Funding opportunities are available via PURE.

	Name	About
	Yasmine Baccari	Yasmine is a sophomore computer science student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is from Kathmandu, Nepal. Sagun is working on network science analysis and provides coding assistance to the research group.

Previous Students

	Name	Thesis Topic
	Nick Aldridge	“Performing Motorized-to-Non-Motorized Crash Analysis Using Multi-Model LBS Traffic Data Calibrated Through Random Forest Models”

Year	Name	Degree
2023-2024	Kun-Yu Lee	B.S.
2022-2024	Sagun Karki	B.S.
2022-2023	Abigail Metschke	B.S.
2022-2023	William Turman	B.S.
2022-2022	Casey Nolte	B.S.
2022-2022	Kumo Babe	B.S.