Principle Investigator

Research Interests

Analysis, modeling and optimization of the transportation system (Mobility-As-A-Service, public transport, railway networks, and emerging transportation technologies), travel behavior and transport economics, data mining and decision analytics (statistical model, machine learning/deep learning), mechanism design and game theory.

Institutional Affiliation

• Vice Chair, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) Transportation Division.

• Vice President, Institute of Transportation Engineers – Canada SK Section (ITE).

• Secretary/Treasurer, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Railway Application Section.

• Affiliate Academics, Center for Smart Infrastructure, University of California, Berkeley.

• Affiliate Member, Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, University of Western Ontario.

• Affiliate Member, Centre for Multi-Hazard Risk and Resilience, University of Western Ontario.

Current Group Members

Pincan Zhao, Western Postdoctoral Fellowship (2025 - ), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Dr. Zhao is working on cooperative sensors and intelligent V2X technologies. Pincan is the awardee of 2025 Western Postdoctoral Fellowship SSHRC stream. 

Xuanyu Zhou, PhD student (2025 - ), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Xuanyu is working on EV charging network optimization and game-theoretic operational strategies.

Ovindu Medagedar, MESc student (2025 - ), Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, UWO. Ovindu is working on autonomous navigation and machine vision. Ovindu is co-supervised with Prof. Min Xia. 

Siyi Liu, MEng project-based (2025 - ), Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, UWO. Siyi is working on reinforcement learning for agent-based traffic route optimization in hexagonal networks. 

Mohammad Farzan Heidari, Postdoctoral Associate (2024 -), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Dr. Heidari is working on robotics with generative AI, multi-sensing and applications in transportation (e.g., railway, automonous vehicles). Dr. Heidari is part of the MoTech Rail team, winning the international INFORMS RAS 2025 Problem Solving Competition. 

Jingwen Yao, PhD candidate (2024 - ), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Jingwen is working on integrated public transit and system optimization.

Suryakant Buchunde, PhD candidate (2024 - ), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Surya is working on rail transit crowding, passenger behavior analyses and spatial-temporal data and AI. 

Zelin Zhang, MESc student (2024 - ), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Zelin is working on unsupervised/self-supervised machine learning algorithms for pattern recognition, with applications in railway infrastructure. 

J. Adrián Martínez-Hernández, Direct Entry PhD student (2023 - ), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Adrian is working on electric vehicle travel behavior, sustainable transportation systems.

Ramin Torkan, PhD student (2024 - ), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Ramin is working on smart grid and energy transmissions with electric vehicles. Ramin is co-supervised with Prof. Zhanle Wang.

Majid Emami Javanmard, PhD candidate (2023 - ), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Majid is the winner of Best Paper Award at Canadian Society for Civil Engineering. He is working on Long-term and short-term forecasting for passenger demand, energy demand and GHG emissions in the transportation sector.

Alumni and Previous Group Members

Tara Yu, Research Assistant (2024 - 2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Tara is working on cloud-edge computing and systems for real-time control and algorithms.

Xristopher Aliferis, NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Xristopher is working on multi-sensing and time-series railway vehicle failure analyses and AI predictions. Xris is part of the MoTech Rail team, winning the international INFORMS RAS 2025 Problem Solving Competition. 

Dr. Tangjian Wei, Postdoctoral Associate (2023 - 2025), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Dr. Wei is working on optimization, demand modeling and high-speed rail. Dr. Wei is part of the MoTech Rail team, winning the international INFORMS RAS 2025 Problem Solving Competition. 

Jingyi Cheng, MEng project-based (2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Jingyi is working on agent-based reinforcement learning on wildfire evacuations and traffic congestion.

Xianming Li, MEng project-based (2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Xianming is working on a deep learning system for multi-source fire and weather data.

Kangrui Wu, MEng project-based (2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Kangrui is working on the the development of a low-cost, human-centered robotic arm with attention mechanisms.

Hangning Li, MEng project-based (2025), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UWO. Hangning is working on robust multi-robot coordination and mobility optimization.

Dr. Ellie Sofiani, Postdoctoral Associate (2023 - 2024), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Ellie is working on stochastic and discrete queuing theory and modeling of charging behaviors. Ellie is co-supervised with Prof. Eman Almehdawe.

Kristen Zhang, Research Assistant (2024), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Ivey Business School, UWO. Kristen is working on multi-sensing data synchronization and robotic system designs.  

Mohammad Faraz Idris Siddiqui, Mitacs GRI Research Assistant (2024), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Faraz is working on AI in urban rail transit and resilience for predictive operations and dynamic simulations.

Shreyas Patil, Mitacs GRI Research Assistant (2024), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Shreyas is working on crowdsourced data and language processing algorithms for electric vehicle charging recommendations.

Edmund Co., USRI Research Assistant (2024), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UWO. Edmund is working on tractable AI algorithms for railway infrastructure monitoring with non-constructive Ground-penetrating radar sensing data. Edmund is co-supervised with Prof. Ayan Sadhu.

Zaima Tasneem, MASc (2023 - 2024), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Zaima is the winner of 2023 Canada ITE Student Presentation Competition and awardee of the Women Entrance Scholarship. She is working on economic analyses of on-demand transit services.

Md Ferdous Haque Shikder, MASc (2022 - 2024), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Ferdous is the awardee of SGI Traffic Scholarship and Thesis Only Scholarship. He worked on dynamic transportation safety analyses (e.g., traffi safety, railway transport of dangerous goods). He is currently working in the City of Regina. 

Xinyu Liu, Research Associate (2022 - 2024), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Xinyu worked on multi-agent robotic mobility and connection.

David Elumeze, Research Assistant (2022 - 2023), Faculty of Science, UofR. David worked on robot controls and mapping.

Sotonye Ignoiko, MEng project-based (2023), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Sotonye worked on the application of GPR in asphalt roads traffic modeling. Co-supervisor: Dr. Shahid Azam. 

Wong Lo (Borison) Hang, Mitacs GRI Research Assistant (2023 ), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Borison worked on on-demand transit network designs and cost-benefit analyses.

Jefferson Araujo, ELAP Research Assistant (2023), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Jefferson is the awardee of Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program. He worked on the logistics network and safety analyses on dangerous goods transportation and assisted with the on-demand transit. 

Adrian Martinez, ELAP Research Assistant (2021-2022), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Adrian is the awardee of Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program. He worked on air passenger and freight transportation demand forecasting, correlation analyses and electric vehicle behavioral analyses.

Duha Adbulla, Research Assistant (2021-2022), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Duha is a highly motivated and enthusiastic Environmental Systems Engineering student with four years of research and development experience passionate to develop environmental sustainability and policy-making solutions. She worked on the on-demand transit service data analytics and interpretations. 

Hafiz Sami Ullah, Research Associate (2021), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Hafiz is a data scientist and machine learning engineer with experience in collecting, cleaning, organizing, and understanding data using end to end machine learning pipeline. He currently works on the database and online decision-making infrastructure for real-time transit operations.

Adesola Maryam Adewuyi, Research Assistant (2021), Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UofR. Adesola is a motivated and self-directed engineering student who invests passion and commitment to achieving the corporate vision. She applies analytic methodology and is interested in the latest technology. She was working on the transit network data analysis. 

Last update: November, 2025. We are updating this information, stay tuned!