UTC e-Newsletter- Fall 2015

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Center for Accessibility and Safety for an Aging Population (ASAP). In this our inaugural newsletter, you will read about news and events at the Center, on the various activities on research, education and outreach programs. We were happy to host the US DOT Secretary during a visit to Florida A&M University, one of the ASAP partner universities. Our Center was also recently highlighted in a recent USDOT Spotlight Newsletter, and our ASAP faculty have been busy performing various outreach activities.

Transportation For A Lifetime!

The Center organized a week-long event for the fall 2015 semester, with the theme: Transportation for a Lifetime!, which began on Monday September 14, 2015. The event was hosted by the Center for Accessibility and Safety for an Aging Population, together with FSU's Institute for Successful Longevity, and the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, as well as participation from Florida A&M University, University of North Florida, other agencies and organizations outside FSU, including the K-12 and the elder community.

Needs Assessment for Multi-Modal Emergency Transportation Operations with a Focus on an Aging Population.

This project describes the conceptual foundation and components necessary to create a knowledge base such that it could ease the facilitation of safe and accessible evacuation of aging people and optimize the flow of critical resources into the affected disaster region to satisfy the needs of those who remain, with importance given to both ensuring the resiliency of the transportation infrastructure and meeting the needs of the aging population. Evaluating this comprehensive knowledge base, this project focuses on an aging victim-focused and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based case study application set in the District 3 Region of the Florida Department of Transportation.

Eren Erman Ozguven, Ph.D.

Eren Erman Ozguven is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. degree from Rutgers University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with a concentration in Emergency Planning and Humanitarian Logistics. Following his graduation, he worked at Rutgers University Intelligent Transportation Systems (RITS) Lab as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate. He also has a M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering on Port Planning and Management from Bogazici University in Turkey.

Individual Research Projects (IRP) for the Young Scholars Program (YSP) at Florida State University.

An ASAP Researcher, Dr. Ozguven and his graduate students Mehmet Baran Ulak and Hidayet Ozel volunteered to sponsor two individual research projects (IRP) for the Young Scholars Program (YSP) at Florida State University. As a part of the program, two high school students were mentored for six weeks in order for them to learn a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software named ArcGIS.

ASAP Director visits StarMetro in Tallahassee.

The Center Director, John Sobanjo, visited StarMetro, the city-owned and operated public bus service for Tallahassee, Florida. This agency is responsible for special transportation needs for the aging and disabled citizens in the city.

Seminar: "Trauma Biomechanics in Passive Safety" By David Poulard, University of Virginia.

As part of an ongoing ASAP research project titled "Biomechanics Models for an Aging Driver," ASAP hosted a seminar at the FSU's AeroPupolsion Mechatronics and Energy (AME) facility in the Conference Room 211 on May 26, 2015. The speaker was David Poulard, Ph.D., a Research Associate at the University of Virginia's Center for Applied Biomechanics. The seminar was successful and well attended by faculty and graduate students from the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, and Civil and Environmental Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

ASAP Researcher mentors at Lincoln High School, Tallahassee.

One of our ASAP Researchers, Dr. Lisa Spainhour recently participated in an outreach event at a local high school. The event was the third in a series of Super Science Saturdays, sponsored by Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Florida. In an effort to encourage more students to take science classes in high school and consider careers in science, engineering, and technology, Lincoln invites students from their feeder middle schools to learn about a science field, and compete against one another in a related event.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx visits Florida A&M University.

One of our UTC Consortium members, Florida A&M University (FAMU), hosted the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx at a town hall meeting held on the FAMU campus in Tallahassee, Florida. . The Secretary’s visit was the first stop on his four-day, five state bus tour, The GROW AMERICA Express, to highlight the importance of investing in America’s infrastructure and to encourage Congress to act on a long-term transportation bill.