School of City and Regional Planning students Chelsea Dyess and Daniel Walls were among the six Georgia Institute of Technology students honored with Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships. The competitive fellowship awarded by the Federal Highway Administration is only awarded to 100 individuals nationwide.

“My research focuses on sidewalk prioritization and assessing pedestrian infrastructure. I proposed using sidewalk quality data to develop a tool to better assess walkability in communities, specifically for people with disabilities or mobility impairments,” said Dyess. “The ultimate goal is to create a ranking for pedestrian infrastructure that incorporates the methodology used by Walk Score, but also takes into consideration sidewalk issues that impede access and mobility for all users.”

Walls explained, “My proposal for the fellowship was to assess the feasibility of integrating on-demand autonomous shuttles into [the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s] public transportation system as a first-mile and last-mile solution. My primary objectives will be to determine 1) whether AV shuttles would be cost effective for MARTA, and 2) whether they would provide a time or productivity benefit for the public.”

Dyess and Walls are dual enrolled in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and pursuing dual master’s in civil engineering and city and regional planning. This year’s other winners from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering were David Boyer, pursuing his master’s in civil engineering and an MBA; Ph.D. student Calvin Clark; Ph.D. student David Ederer; and Lauren Gardner, pursuing her master’s in civil engineering.