2025-2026 UTTAN Executive Team
Now in its 7th year, the University of Toronto Transportation Alumni Network (UTTAN) continues to connect alumni and support students in the transportation field. We’re excited to collaborate with UTTAN again this year and introduce the new executive team:
🔹 Amy Jiang – Chair
🔹 Greg Hoy – Vice Chair
🔹 John Kemp – Secretary
🔹 Lisa Ma – Treasurer
🔹 Denny Yip – Communications Officer
🔹 Sophie Costantino – Student Rep (Civil)
🔹 Alara Koc – Student Rep (Industrial)
UTTAN’s annual student competition is underway with the theme “My Year as Traffic Czar,” inspired by Toronto’s real-life appointment of a traffic czar.
Upcoming highlights include Industry Night this fall and the return of the Alumni Reception to U of T in spring 2026. Stay tuned!
Amir Forouhar (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, where he feels privileged to contribute to the field of urban planning, transportation, and urban data science. Holding a Ph.D. in Urban Planning, his doctoral research explored the intersections of transit-oriented development (TOD), socioeconomic equity, and urban development, with a focus on how transit systems shape neighborhood dynamics.
Under the supervision of Dr. Karen Chapple, Amir has had the opportunity to contribute to impactful projects such as the Downtown Recovery Project (School of Cities), Transit-Oriented Development on Main Streets (Canadian Urban Institute), and Urban Doom Loop (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy). Using innovative datasets—like cellphone mobility data, the Longitudinal Administrative Databank (LAD), and real estate market trends— combined with advanced geospatial and statistical tools, he has worked to uncover critical insights into post-COVID population dynamics, mobility patterns, and socioeconomic trends in North American cities. His recent publications—“Transit-Driven Resilience” (Journal of Transport Geography, 2025) and “Assessing Downtown Recovery Rates and Determinants in North American Cities” (Urban Studies, 2023)—highlight the role of enhanced connectivity and mixed-use development in fostering more resilient and inclusive urban environments.
Beyond research, Amir is passionate about teaching urban planning and data analysis, where he guides students in using spatial and analytical tools to address real-world challenges. Committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion, he advocates for urban policies that prioritize marginalized communities and enhance accessibility for all.
Congratulations to Shuoyan Xu on receiving the Roschlau Graduate Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility!
About Shuoyan Xu
Shuoyan is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Engineering at the University of Toronto, supervised by Professor Eric Miller and serving as a research scientist at the Travel Modelling Group.
He has published research on ridesharing services and Mobility-as-a-Service systems at leading conferences such as the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR).
His work has been recognized with several honors, including the Student Paper Competition Award at the ITE Canada Conference and the FASE Graduate Award. His research focuses on advancing sustainable urban mobility by integrating cutting-edge deep learning techniques with transportation engineering.
About the Roschlau Graduate Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility
The Roschlau Graduate Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility is the first fellowship of its kind at the University of Toronto. It was established in 2023 thanks to a generous donation from Michael W. Roschlau, U of T alumnus and former President & CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Association.
The $5,000 scholarship is aimed at full-time graduate students in architecture, business, economics, engineering, geography, planning, political science, or related fields, who are pursuing research related to sustainable urban mobility. The fellowship will be offered annually for a period of five years.
Proposed research should incorporate innovative concepts and be relevant to current public policy or practice. Potential research themes could include, but are not limited to, the following areas: Public transit expansion and investment | Public transit operations | Active transportation | Integrated urban mobility | New technology for sustainable urban mobility | Urban development and land use-transport interaction.
Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering and Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. Madeleine holds a Masters and PhD in Physics from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in physics at the University of Waterloo. Despite all the physics, she was never all that interested in "real" physics and was always looking for interesting research at the edges of other fields. In graduate school, Madeleine studied bacteria and virus evolutionary dynamics with a physics approach, and in her postdoctoral work Madeleine applies data science and physics thinking to understand transportation networks.
Cycling is a fun, healthy, and sustainable method of travel, but access to destinations on low-stress cycling routes in Canadian cities is both limited and unevenly distributed. As a member of the Sustainable Systems Research Group under Dr. Shoshanna Saxe and the Applied Optimization Lab under Dr. Timothy Chan, Madeleine has worked on several projects to quantify the impacts of cycling infrastructure and prioritize evidence-based infrastructure investments. In collaboration with the City of Toronto, Madeleine has optimized the placement of new cycling infrastructure to understand tradeoffs between efficiency-focused and equity-focused goals and studied usage patterns of cycling infrastructure in Toronto using Strava data. Her ongoing work focuses on integrating cycling and emerging mobility into multimodal transport modelling to understand the impact of infrastructure on mode shifts and overall traffic patterns.
Madeleine’s work has supported evidence-driven transportation policy through collaborations with government partners, presenting to a committee of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on the impacts of bike lane removal, opinion pieces, and media interviews.
When not frowning at her computer screen, Madeleine likes to do crafts, garden, go to the park with her two children, and ride bikes with her family.
Are you a U of T student or a recent U of T graduate interested in transportation? Then this opportunity is for you!
The University of Toronto Transportation Alumni Network (UTTAN) is launching its 7th annual student competition. This year's theme is My Year as “Traffic Czar”, where you and your team get to research and develop a solution to Toronto’s traffic congestion. Participation in this competition includes mentorship from industry professionals and monetary prizes for the top three winning teams!
Click here for the full competition brief including all details
The deadline for proposal submissions is June 20th, 2025 at 11:59 pm.
Need help finding a team? You can leave your contact information and topic ideas in this spreadsheet to help find other like-minded students.
For more information or questions, please contact UTTAlumniNetwork@gmail.com, and stay tuned for more information regarding our call for mentors!
About UTTAN and Mobility Network
The University of Toronto Transportation Alumni Network (UTTAN) is an association of U of T graduates of any discipline, working as transportation professionals. We welcome you to join the Alumni Network and to participate in this 7th annual UTTAN student competition.
Mobility Network is a network of partners in the community, in industry, and in government, who will collaborate to find mobility solutions that serve people’s well-being, the planet’s future, and the potential of our growing cities to flourish equitably, sustainably, and productively.
Sign up for the UTTAN mailing list
Thiago A. Rodrigues is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto (UofT). He holds a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where his research focused on assessing the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of autonomous delivery robots. After completing his PhD, Thiago worked as a strategic consultant, helping utility companies across North America become more resilient to climate change.
At UofT, Thiago is part of the Sustainable Systems Research Group, led by Professors Daniel Posen, Shoshanna Saxe, and Heather MacLean. His current work contributes to the Canadian Open Energy Outlook (CANOE) under the direction of Dr. Daniel Posen, with a focus on integrating the petroleum refining and transportation sectors to assess their systemic impacts on deep decarbonization pathways. Thiago is also an instructor in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at UofT, where he teaches a course on Innovative Technologies and Global Energy Systems to senior undergraduate and master’s students from a variety of disciplines.
Outside academia, Thiago enjoys board games, racket sports, and cooking with friends. Having recently moved to Toronto, he shares his apartment with his two cats, Che and Diego, who are looking forward to exploring the new city this summer.
Rotem Mashkov is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Prof. Paul Hess. She is a human geographer and an urban planner whose research interests include the tourist experience, urban tourism, cognitive urbanism, and the application of advanced tracking technologies to explore human experiences in urban settings.
She earned her Ph.D. in Geography in November 2024 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation, entitled " Sensing Urban Overtourism: Innovative Measurement Approaches, " utilized a multidimensional methodology that combined GPS tracking, online surveys, and embodied measures such as electrical skin conductance (EDA) and eye-tracking glasses. The research investigated the effects of overtourism on visitor experiences in congested urban environments, resulting in two papers published in high-ranking journals: Tourism Geographies and the Journal of Travel Research, with a third article currently under second revision for the Annals of Tourism Research.
During her work at the Advanced Tracking Technologies Lab (ATTL), led by her PhD supervisor, Prof. Noam Shoval, she contributed to developing innovative methods for assessing visitor experiences in diverse settings, including memorial sites and museum exhibitions in Berlin and Munich, religious sites in Jerusalem, and hotel buffets on the Gold Coast, Australia. Her work involved designing and conducting field experiments that integrated GPS data with physiological sensors to capture both objective and subjective dimensions of visitor experiences.
Her current research investigates the cognitive and emotional dimensions of urban underground spaces (UUS), using Toronto’s underground pedestrian wayfinding system, the PATH, as a case study. This work explores how UUS environments influence visual attention, cognitive load, and emotional responses, aiming to enhance accessibility, safety, and overall well-being in these spaces.
For the third year, the Mobility Network is offering a graduate fellowship in sustainable urban mobility. The goals of the Roschlau Graduate Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility are to stimulate innovative applied research, to inform public policy and to assist a student in pursuing their field of study.
This award is made possible through a generous donation from Michael W. Roschlau, U of T alumnus and former President & CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Association.
The successful candidate will undertake primary research on their chosen topic from September 2025 to May 2026
Eligibility
To be eligible to receive this award, you must be registered as a full-time graduate student, at a doctoral or master’s level, at the University of Toronto and must be pursuing research related to sustainable urban mobility (with a focus on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of human mobility) in architecture, business, economics, engineering, geography, planning, political science, or related fields.
Your research interests should incorporate innovative concepts and be relevant to current public policy or practice. Potential research themes could include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
- Public transit expansion and investment
- Public transit operations
- Active transportation
- Integrated urban mobility
- Urban development and land use-transport interaction
The holder of the award is required to produce a policy paper and to present their research at a seminar organized by Mobility Network. The support received from the Roschlau Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility must be acknowledged in all presentations and publications.
Amount
The award recipient will receive CAD$5,000, paid in two equal instalments, one in September and one in January. The Roschlau Fellowship in Sustainable Urban Mobility may be held in conjunction with any other award.
Length and Residency
The residency of this award is from September 2025 to May 2026. The holder of this fellowship must be in residence in Toronto to permit full participation in various events and seminars offered by the Mobility Network throughout the academic year.
Application materials
Interested applicants must submit
- A maximum 1-page (single spaced, 12-point font) project proposal that includes an outline of the research idea and how it is connected to your program of study/professional experience.
- A 300-word personal reflection on why you are the ideal candidate for this award.
- A complete and up-to-date resume.
Applications will be accepted until April 30th, 2025.
Please send your complete application package by email to:
- Mobility Network
- Subject Heading: “Your Name” Roschlau Graduate Fellowship Application
- mobilitynetwork@utoronto.ca
Material from your Faculty Supervisor
Please request a 1-2 paragraph letter of recommendation from your faculty supervisor that includes an assessment of both the proposed research and future research promise. Please ask your supervisor to send this recommendation should be sent directly to Mobility Network at mobilitynetwork@utoronto.ca.
Decisions will be announced in late June 2025.
The Mobility Network at University of Toronto recently hosted their 5-Minute Thesis (5MT) competition for graduate students working in transportation and mobility research. This event, showcasing the impressive work of students, features a series of short, impactful presentations that distil years of research into a five-minute video presentation.
Two of the top three recipients of this year’s competition awards are CivMin grad students, who impressed both the judges and their peers with their innovative and thought-provoking research on critical transportation issues. The awards luncheon, held February 26, was overseen by Mobility Network’s Education Specialist Khadija Butt, with Interim Director Steve Farber abstaining from the role, as his student was the winner.
First Place: Paromita Nakshi
Understanding the Long-Term Social Outcomes of Transportation Inequities in Canada
Paromita Nakshi, a PhD student in the Department of Geography and Planning, took home the first-place prize with her insightful thesis on the long-term social impacts of transportation inequities in Canada. Supervised by Professor Steven Farber, Nakshi uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore disparities in transportation access and how these inequalities affect social mobility, health, and economic outcomes. Her research aims to guide policymakers toward creating more equitable transportation systems for all Canadians.
Second Place: Sebastian Villada Rivera
Investigating the Electricity Requirements and Interactions with Connected Sectors of Electrifying Canadian Heavy-Duty Trucking Freight
Sebastian Villada Rivera, a MASc student in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, secured second place with his thesis exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by the electrification of Canadian heavy-duty trucking freight. Supervised by CivMin Professors Matthew Roorda and Daniel Posen, his research examines the electricity requirements and the complex interactions with other sectors as Canada moves toward electrifying its freight transportation. This work is crucial for understanding the infrastructure needs and potential environmental benefits of shifting to electric trucks.
Third Place: Hesam Rashidi
Centring Human Needs in Last-Mile Delivery Design
Hesam Rashidi, a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, earned third place for his research focusing on the human aspects of last-mile delivery logistics. Supervised by Professor Mehdi Nourinejad and CivMin Professor Matthew Roorda, his thesis critiques the industry’s reliance on algorithmic designs that prioritize speed and cost over the well-being of drivers, consumers, and retailers. Rashidi proposes a more human-centred approach to last-mile delivery systems, one that takes into account the preferences and needs of the drivers who form the backbone of the retail supply chain.
Watch the Winning Presentations!
The winning presentations are available on YouTube. You can view the thought-provoking work of these talented graduate students below.
- 1st place: https://youtu.be/7VX5UjxTtJM?si=bhRg4qNMEp6ItsLu
- 2nd place: https://youtu.be/NsmLB0HM0SE?si=ApSpNA5FA3TGOqCz
- 3rd place: https://youtu.be/XSE67ZPyaeg?si=MXqaQsSeQROxlUnC
This post was created by Phill Snel. Read the original post here.
Martin Holmes (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto St. George. He holds a PhD in Public Health Sciences from the University of Waterloo, where his research focused on food literacy—the knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to food—and health measurement. His academic background is rooted in urban ecology, with previous research exploring downtown revitalization efforts and access to public parks and recreation opportunities.
As part of the SAUCY Lab under the direction of Dr. Michael Widener, Martin is contributing to the second iteration of the Canadian Food Environment Database (CanFED). This data, part of the Healthy Eating and Supportive Environments (HEAL) initiative, will be used to investigate how food environments shape dietary intake and health outcomes. His work involves applying statistical methods and geographic information systems (GIS) to assess food landscapes, identify spatial differences in food access and model associations between food access from an equity perspective.
Martin’s experience and current research follow his overarching interest in integrating spatial analysis with public health to inform urban planning and policy. His goal is to advance research that supports the development of healthier, sustainable, and resilient cities that promote population health for everyone.
In addition to research, Martin has been a part-time faculty member at Nipissing University for the past 13 years, where he teaches various undergraduate geography courses.
Outside of academia, Martin is an avid traveller and enjoys staying active through soccer and swimming. He has a passion for cooking and exploring recipes from around the globe. He is currently revelling in life with his two cats, Broccoli and Brussel Sprout - who provide a daily dose of chaos and entertainment.
Ya Gao is a Mobility Network Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto St. George. She is a transportation and urban planning researcher whose areas of interest include travel demand modelling, the modelling of travel behaviour choices, and the interaction between urban development and transportation. She holds a doctorate in urban planning with a focus on travel behaviour research from Tongji University. Her research involves travel demand modelling with the introduction of new mobility technologies, incorporating big data and machine learning in travel behaviour modelling, examining heterogeneity in travel behaviour, and exploring the impact of online shopping on travel demand.
At the Travel Modelling Group (TMG) under the direction of Dr. Eric Miller, she has been involved in the development of the next generation of TASHA (Travel/Activity Scheduler for Household Agents), the upgrade of GTAModel V4 (an activity-based travel demand model in the Great Toronto and Hamilton Area) and the development of PADUM (Planificateur d’activités de déplacements urbain de Montréal).
Her current research explores the supply and demand of ride-hailing in the city of Toronto using the GTAModel V4 travel demand model system. The research aims to investigate the interaction between ride-hailing supply and demand, its effects on the demand for other travel modes, and the impact of capping ride-hailing licenses using microsimulation techniques.
Marianne Hatzopoulou is Chair in the Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transport Decarbonization and Air Quality. She leads the Transportation and Air Quality (TRAQ) research group studying the interactions between transportation, air quality, climate change, and public health; she published over 150 publications on these topics. Prof. Hatzopoulou is also the Director of Positive Zero Transport Futures, a living lab ecosystem for testing transport decarbonization innovations with positive societal outcomes.
Prof. Hatzopoulou held a Tier2 Canada Research Chair in Transportation and Air Quality (2013-2021) and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Accelerator Supplement (2016-2019), an award recognizing research programs that are highly rated for originality and innovation. She is on the Canadian team of researchers who were the 2021 recipients of the NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering. In 2022, she received the University of Toronto Engineering Alumni Network 2T5 Mid-Career Achievement Award. She is an associate editor of the journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. She supported municipal governments and community groups in the appraisal of transportation policies in terms of climate and air quality impacts and served on national and international expert panels, providing advice on the development of strategies to reduce transportation-related emissions.
The Campus-Community Partnership for Reducing Air Pollution in the Bathurst Quay Neighborhood is a collaborative initiative involving the Bathurst Quay Neighborhood Association, the City of Toronto, Toronto Public Health, and Ports Toronto. The project aims to assess population exposure to air pollution and identify the contributions of various sources, such as the airport, highways, and regional background pollution. Additionally, it seeks to inform policy and planning decisions related to land use, transportation, and airport operations. Findings indicate that while air pollutant concentrations in Bathurst Quay are generally comparable to other urban areas in Toronto, the airport is a significant source of ultrafine particles (UFP). Notably, ferry electrification has led to a measurable reduction in certain pollutants. The project has generated key recommendations for mitigating airport-related emissions and has contributed to a deeper understanding of air quality in the neighborhood. Moreover, it provides evidence that targeted interventions, such as ferry electrification, can effectively reduce pollution exposure for the community.