Sikai Chen, a recently graduated PhD who worked with Professor Samuel Labi in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering and the Center for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAT), has been named recipient of the Spring/Summer 2019 Civil Engineering Best Dissertation Award.

This award by the Purdue Lyles School of Civil Engineering recognizes the outstanding doctoral dissertation in the school including demonstrated excellence in the dissertation research through peer-reviewed journal publications and conference papers.

The title of Sikai’s dissertation is “Safety Implications of Roadway Design and Management: New Evidence and Insights in the traditional and Emerging Operating Environments.”

Sikai is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Purdue University’s Center for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAT) and Lyles School of Civil Engineering, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Robotics Institute (RI) at Carnegie Mellon University.

His research interests include transportation infrastructure systems evaluation and policy analysis, and applications of machine learning and data mining in transportation and infrastructure systems. His current research at CCAT and RI focuses on deep learning, intelligent transportation systems, vehicle automation, simulation and control. He a member of the Transportation Research Forum and two ASCE committees (Connected & Autonomous Vehicle Impacts, and Economics & Finance).