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BIO
Transportation is not about to move people and goods, instead it's all about to access activities and services.
Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor at The University of Southern Mississippi since 2019. She teaches for the Program of Industry Engineering technology in the School of Leadership, College of Business and Economic Development. Courses taught by Dr. Zhang include Engineering Economy, Statics and Strengths of Materials, Industry Cost Control, and Senior Project. Dr. Zhang also collaborates closely with the Center for Logistics, Trade and Transportation at the same university. She has extensive research experience in various areas of transportation engineering, planning, and management, including transportation safety, network analysis, and pedestrian studies. She received her Ph.D degree in Transportation Planning and Management from Tongji University, Shanghai, China in 2012 and subsequently worked in University of California, Berkeley, as a Post-Doctoral Researcher. In 2016, she joined USM and lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Her current research interests include: transportation related economic development, multi-modal freight network analysis, resilience of coastal regions, machine learning application in transportation, and traffic safety.
GRANTS
The Institute for Systems Engineering Research (ISER) at Mississippi State University, “A market accessibility study of the inland waterway system in Mississippi – Phase III”, PI (2020.9-2021.9)
The Institute for Systems Engineering Research (ISER) at Mississippi State University, “A market accessibility study of the inland waterway system in Mississippi – Phase II”, PI (2019.9-2020.5)
Gulf Regional Planning Commission (GRPC), “Economic impact evaluation for transportation improvement projects”, Principle Investigator (PI) (2019)
National Academy of Science (NAS), “An automated system for pedestrian facility data collection”, Principle Investigator (PI) (2018-2020) $129,954.00
Rail Passenger Association (RPA), “Economic impact study for Southwest Chief railway service”, PI (2018)
The Institute for Systems Engineering Research (ISER) at Mississippi State University, “A market accessibility study of the inland waterway system in Mississippi”, PI (2018-2019)
Western Forestry Leadership Coalition, “Developing and implementing strategies to improve management, health and utilization of forest and forest industry through market development”, Subcontractor to Mississippi Forestry Commission, PI (2018-2020)
Southern Rail Commission, “Restoration of Gulf Coast Passenger Rail Service – economic impact in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana”, PI (2018)
City of Hattiesburg, “Economic impact projection study”, PI (2017)
California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), “Strategies for Monitoring and Reducing Traffic Injury for Pedestrians”, PD & LR (2014-2017)
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Yingying Ma, Siyuan Lu, and Yuanyuan Zhang, "Analysis on Illegal Crossing Behavior of Pedestrians at Signalized Intersections Based on Bayesian Network," Journal of Advanced Transportation, vol. 2020, Article ID 2675197, 14 pages, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/2675197.
Hua Zhang and Yuanyuan Zhang (Corresponding author). Pedestrian Network Analysis Using a Network Consisting of Formal Pedestrian Facilities - Sidewalks and Crosswalks. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 2019, Vol 2673(7): 294-307.
Zhao Yang, Yuanyuan Zhang (corresponding author), Offer Grembek. Combining traffic efficiency and traffic safety in countermeasure selection to improve pedestrian safety at two-way stop controlled intersections. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. Volume 91, pp 286-301, 2016.
Wen Xiong, Yuanyuan Zhang (corresponding author), Yahan Liang, Chao Jiang. When walking becomes praying: the walking environment survey and improvement for circumambulation paths in Lhasa. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Volume 2581, pp. 134-144, 2016.
Zhao Yang, Pan Liu, Yuanyuan Zhang, David Ragland. Multi-objective analysis of using u-turns as alternatives to direct left turns at two-way stop-controlled intersections. Journal of Advanced Transportation. Volume 50, Issue 4, pp 389-405, 2016.
Zhao Yang, Yuanyuan Zhang (corresponding author), Renwei Zhu, Xiaofei Ye, Xiaohong Jiang. Impacts of pedestrians on capacity and delay of major-street through traffic at Two-Way STOP-Controlled intersections. Journal of Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Vol 2015, pp 1-11. 2015
Frank Proulx, Yuanyuan Zhang (corresponding author), Offer Grembek. Database for active transportation infrastructure and volume. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2527, pp 99-106, 2015.
Yuanyuan Zhang, John Bigham, David Ragland, Xiahong Chen. Investigating the associations between road network structure and non-motorist accidents. Journal of Transport Geography, Vol. 42, pp 34-47. 2015
Wei Huang, Lingbin Kong, Yuanyuan Zhang, and Xiaohong Chen. A discussion on project transportation impact analysis technique standard. Planners, 29 (7), 2013.
Yuanyuan Zhang, Xuesong Wang, Peng Zeng, and Xiaohong Chen. Centrality characteristics of road network patterns of traffic analysis zones, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2256, pp 16-24, 2011.
Yuanyuan Zhang, Xiaohong Chen, Jingwen Jiang. Wayfinding-oriented design for passenger guidance signs in large-scale transit center in China, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2144, pp 150-160, 2010.
Yuanyuan Zhang, Xiaohong Chen, Na Li. Experimental research of relationship between pedestrian stopping distance and walking speed to avoid pedestrian crowd stampede accident. ICCTP 2010: Integrated Transportation Systems: Green, Intelligent, Reliable. ASCE, pp 839-850, 2010.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
Yuanyuan Zhang, Fan Zhang, Caleb Prine, Amit Tripathi, Steve Puryear. A market accessibility study of the inland waterway system in Mississippi. Proceeding of The 2021 Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering conference. May 26-29, 2021. Virtual.
Hua Zhang and Yuanyuan Zhang (Corresponding author). Pedestrian Network Analysis Using a Network Consisting of Formal Pedestrian Facilities - Sidewalks and Crosswalks. Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2019. (Recommended for publication in Transportation Research Record)
Yuanyuan Zhang, Chad Miller. Using bill of lading data to identify economic development opportunities. The 6th International Transportation and Economic Development Conference. June 6-8, 2018, Washington DC.
Joseph Luttrell IV, Zhaoxian Zhou, Yuanyuan Zhang, Chaoyang Zhang, Ping Gong, Bei Yang, Ruizhi Li. A deep learning approach to fine-tuning facial recognition models. IEEE ICIEA 2018, Wuhan, China.
Yuanyuan Zhang, Chad Miller, Dongxin Lin, and Brandon Nettles. An investigation of the shipping route of the U.S. exports of military end use products. Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2018.
Joseph Luttrell IV, Zhaoxian Zhou, Chaoyang Zhang, Ping Gong, Yuanyuan Zhang. Facial recognition via transfer learning: finetuning Keras_vggface. 4th Annual Conference on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Dec. 14-16, 2017.
Yingying Ma, Xiaodan Qin, Yuanyuan Zhang (corresponding author), Shaokun Liu. Understanding When Price Can Affect Choice of Public Bicycle: Stated-Preference Survey and Analysis of Public Bicycle Service in Guangzhou, China. Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 2017.
Wen Xiong, Yuanyuan Zhang, Xiaohong Chen, Chao Jiang. The Analysis of Right-of-Way for Different Road Users in China: Passing-Passenger-Unit Versus Passenger-Car-Unit. Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2015.
Zhibin Li, Pan Liu, Ye Li, Chengcheng Xu, Hao Yu, Yuanyuan Zhang. Development of a Variable Speed Limit Strategy Based on Car Following Behaviors for Improving Freeway Safety Under Severe Weathers. Transportation Research Board 93th Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2014.
Yuanyuan Zhang, John Bigham, Zhibin Li, David Ragland, Xiaohong Chen. Associations Between Road Network Structure and Pedestrian-Bicyclist Accidents. Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2013.
Yuanyuan Zhang, John Bigham, Zhibin Li, David Ragland. Associations between road network connectivity and pedestrian-bicyclist accidents. Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2012.
Yuanyuan Zhang, Xiaohong Chen, Na Li. Experimental Research on Relationship Between Pedestrian Stopping Distance and Walking Speed. Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting, Washington DC. 2009.
STUDENTS
AMIT TRIPATHI
Undergraduate Student
Year in group: 2018.8 - Present
Research:
*Passenger railway impact study
*Forestry industry logistics study
*Port accessibility study
*Automated data collection for pedestrian facilities
CHAITANYA KUMAR MADDALA
Master Student
Year in group: 2019.8 - Present
Research:
*Automated data collection for pedestrian facilities
WILLIAM KINKEAD
Master Student
Year in group: 2019.8 - Present
Research:
*Multimodal network analysis
*Pedestrian network analysis
JOSEPH LUTTRELL
Ph.D Student
Year in group: 2019.1 - Present
Research:
Joseph Luttrell IV's research has focused on machine learning and its application to problems in the areas of bioinformatics and image processing, including protein residue-residue contact prediction, face recognition, and automated pedestrian facility data collection. His skillset primarily consists of machine learning model development in Python using PyTorch and Tensorflow
JOSHUA HUBBELL
Ph.D Student
Year in group: 2020.1 - Present
Research:
* Traffic crash data analysis
* Statistical modeling and big data analysis
DONGXIN LIN
Master Student
Year in group: 2017.9 - 2018.5
Research:
* Target industry identification based on trade data and shipping cost
* Defense logistics data analysis
JENNIFER HOOPER
Master Student
Year in group: 2018.9 - 2019.5
Research:
* Forestry industry logistics study
BRANDON NETTLES
Master Student
Year in group: 2017.9-2018.5
Research:
* Defense logistics data analysis
CALEB PRINE
Master Student
Year in group: 2018.9 - 2019.5
Research:
*Passenger railway impact study
*Forestry industry logistics study
*Port market accessibility study
MEDIA REPORTS
La Junta Tribune – Democrat, “Southwest Chief boosts states’ coffers”, Feb. 18th, 2019
The Chronicle-News, “Southwest Chief study hopes to put to bed Amtrak idea to replace rail service with busses”, Feb. 10th, 2019
USA Today Hattiesburg American, “How USM's artificial intelligence research on sidewalks could save thousands of lives”, Jan. 30th, 2019
Albuquerque Journal, “Study: Bisecting Southwest Chief rail service a costly plan”, Jan. 27th, 2019
Southern Colorado’s NPR Station, “New Study Explores Southwest Chief's Economic Impact In Colorado”, Jan 21st, 2019
Amtrak in the Heartland, “Amtrak Still Dragging Feet on S.W. Chief Route Money”, Jan. 19th, 2019
Southern Miss Now, “USM is First Mississippi University to Receive Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis Grant from National Academy of Sciences”, Nov. 2018
Southern Miss Now, “Science Cafe' at Cook Library: Experience the Dangers of Texting and Driving”, Aug. 2018
Sun Herald, “Amtrak passenger trains inch closer to the Coast. Here's what research says it will bring”, Jun. 2018
FOX WXXV25, “RESTORING GULF COAST PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE”, Jun. 2018
WMC Action News 5, “Report says Coast could see tourism boost if passenger rail service returns”, Jun. 2018
Southern Miss Now, “Professor Presents Research on Potential Restoration of Coast Rail Service”, Jun. 2018
OVERVIEW OF COURSES
Knowledge for Every Level
Fall Semesters
AEC 390 ENGINEERING ECONOMY
The course discusses methods used for determining the comparative financial desirability of engineering alternatives. Students learn how to choose between options and where the outcomes are measured in monetary units, in the process help them make an informed decision from the identified unit of analysis. Topics include principles of economic equivalence; time value of money; analysis of single and multiple investments; comparison of alternatives; capital recovery and tax implications; certainty; uncertainty; risk analysis; and break-even concepts.
Spring Semesters 3 Credit Course
AEC 270 STATICS AND STRENGTHS OF MATERIALS
Statics & Strength of Materials is the prerequisite course for Structural Design and involves the study of force systems, stresses, strains, beams and columns. This preparation is necessary for understanding structural design and analysis. You will become familiar with Newton’s Laws, Force Components, Addition of Forces, Equilibrium of Force Systems, Trusses, Pulleys, Load Tracing, Wall and Roof systems, and many types of Stresses, Strains, Beams, and Columns.
Fall Semester Guest Instructor
ED 722 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODS
This course covers theories underlying local/regional and state economic development, and an overview of the most important research methods and data used. Dr. Zhang covers lectures about leveraging freight data and advanced Geographic Information Techniques to boost your economic development practice and research.
TBD
NEW COURSES COMING SOON
Dr. Zhang would like to teach more courses about engineering, such as Mechanics, Structure Analysis, Surveying, Soils and Foundations, Fluid Mechanics, and Transportation Systems.
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