The members of MAFC welcome Dr. Soyoung Ahn as the organization’s new executive director. In this role, Dr. Ahn succeeds Professor Teresa Adams, who resigned from the position in which she served for a decade.  Dr. Ahn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where the MAFC staff are headquartered.

Dr. Ahn brings her expertise in traffic flow analysis and modeling, (numerical) simulations, and traffic control using emerging technologies,  as well as freight operations and planning to the coalition. Her research involves:

1. Understanding the fundamental characteristics of various traffic-flow phenomena through observation and modeling
2. Linking traffic phenomena to individual driver characteristics
3. Developing traffic control strategies using emerging technologies, such as the connected autonomous vehicle technology
4. Identifying and characterizing freight corridors and freight bottlenecks

Her research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Mid-America Freight Coalition (MAFC), Transportation Research Board SHRP II, Smart Work Zone Deployment Initiative, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, USDOT, Arizona Department of Transportation, and Oregon Transportation Research and Education Center.  She is the Chair of TRB’s Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics Committee (AHB 45), an Associate Editor for Transportation Research Part C, an editorial board member for Transportation Research Part B, and a member of International Advisory Board of International Symposium on Traffic and Transportation Theory (ISTTT).

Dr. Ahn received her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, and was on the faculty at Arizona State University before she joined the UW in 2013.