ITS Canada Michel Van Aerde Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Study in ITS
2008 Recipients

The Education and Training Committee is pleased to announce the recipients of ITS Canada's Michel Van Aerde Memorial Scholarship for 2008. The award is made through a competitive process to a student (or to more than one student if equally qualified) registered full-time in a graduate studies program at a Canadian university related to intelligent transportation systems (ITS). In 2008, two students will share the award and receive $2,500 each.

Pedram Izadpanah is a graduate student in the third year of his Doctoral program in Civil Engineering (Transportation) at Waterloo University. His research proposal is entitled, “Freeway Travel Time Prediction Using Data from Mobile Phone Probes”. The main goal of his Ph.D. thesis is to develop tools for reliable prediction of near future travel time on freeways. He completed his M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran (Civil – Transportation). He has worked in the public, private and academic sectors and has published nine technical reports, journal papers and contributions to conference proceedings. He is active in professional societies and currently serves as President of the CITE Student Chapter at Waterloo University. The Review Committee was impressed with Pedram’s demonstrated understanding of ITS, his stated career and educational objectives, his high academic achievements, his demonstrated leadership ability and his very strong letters of reference.

Andrew Wong is a graduate student in the first year of his Master of Applied Science program in Civil Engineering (Transportation) at the University of Toronto. His research is devoted to improving public transit by developing methods to provide accurate bus arrival time information to travellers, in order to reduce their perceived waiting time at bus stops. He completed his B.A.Sc. in Civil Engineering (Management Science) at Waterloo University and spent one term (Transportation) at University of Leeds, United Kingdom. He has worked in the private and public sectors and as a research assistant at both the Universities of Toronto and Waterloo. The Review Committee was impressed with Andrew’s demonstrated understanding of ITS, his stated career and educational objectives related to transit, his very high academic achievements, his relevant ITS work experience and his very strong letters of reference from both academic and industry sources.

ITS Canada extends congratulations to Pedram and Andrew, and wishes them every success in their graduate studies.

We thank all the candidates who competed for the 2008 award, and invite potential applicants to watch the website for future scholarship opportunities.