Each year during the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) honors the best and brightest students from University Transportation Centers (UTC) in the nation for contribution to the transportation field. The students are selected for outstanding accomplishments in research, academics, professionalism, leadership and technical merit. The UTC program is administered by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R) at USDOT.
2023 Student of the Year – Bryce Grame, Ph.D. student, University of Florida
2022 Student of the Year – Matteo Saracco, M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology
2021 Student of the Year – Mitchell Fisher, Ph.D. student, Auburn University
2020 Student of the Year – Patrick Emami, Ph.D. student, University of Florida
2019 Student of the Year – Rebecca Kiriazes, Ph.D. student, Georgia Technological University
2018 Student of the Year – M. Shoaib Samandar, Ph.D. student, North Carolina State University
2017 Student of the Year – Les Brown, MURP, Sr. Managing Consultant, Transportation at ICF
2016 Student of the Year – Don Watson, Ph.D., Traffic Specialist, FDOT District 5 (University of Florida)
2015 Student of the Year – Clark Letter, Ph.D, ITE Engineer, HNTB Corporation (University of Florida)
2014 Student of the Year – Dr. Louis Merlin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Florida Atlantic University
2013 Student of the Year – Erica Schmidt, master’s student, University of Alabama at Birmingham
2012 Student of the Year – Amy Dunham, MURP, AICP, Senior Transportation Planner, WSP USA (University of Florida)