{"id":23,"date":"2015-11-03T16:06:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T21:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.eng.ufl.edu\/faculty-site\/?page_id=23"},"modified":"2026-01-09T16:34:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T16:34:26","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/people\/","title":{"rendered":"People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/h6>\n
Xilei Zhao<\/span><\/a>, Ph.D.<\/span><\/h6>\n

Assistant Professor, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Email:\u00a0xilei.zhao@essie.ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Google Scholar<\/a> | ResearchGate<\/a> | Linkedin<\/a> | Twitter<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Dr. Xilei Zhao (\u8d75\u66e6\u857e) is an assistant professor in Transportation Engineering at the University of Florida, where she leads the Smart, Equitable, Resilient Mobility Systems (SERMOS) Lab. She received a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and a Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. Zhao\u2019s work focuses on developing and applying AI and data science methods to tackle challenging problems in transportation and resilience. Her work has been widely published in leading transportation and resilience journals, e.g., Transportation Research Part A, C <\/em>& D, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems,<\/em>\u00a0and Safety Science<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Zhao is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the Early-Career Research Fellowship of NASEM’s Gulf Research Program. She also received the Travel Behaviour and Society<\/em> Outstanding Paper Award 2020 for her paper entitled \u201cPrediction and behavioral analysis of travel mode choice: A comparison of machine learning and logit models.\u201d Her research has been supported by multiple funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Zhao is an active committee member of TRB AMR20: Committee on Disaster Response, Emergency Evacuations, and Business Continuity, and serves on the editorial board of Data Science for Transportation<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Postdocs<\/h2>\n

\"\"Sangung Park, Ph.D.<\/span><\/h6>\n

Postdoc, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Email: spark10@ufl.edu<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Sangung Park is a Postdoc Researcher working in the SERMOS Lab at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. degree at Lyles School of Civil Engineering from Purdue University. His dissertation aims at identifying and preventing the conditions to post-disaster recovery failures. He focused on the intersection of climate change, disaster resilience, human mobility data analytics, and urban computing. His work in the post-disaster recovery process has been published in disaster and sustainability journals.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

PH.D. Students<\/h2>\n

\"\"Shangkun Jiang<\/span><\/h6>\n

Ph.D. student, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Email: jiang.shangkun@ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Shangkun Jiang received his B.E. degree in Transportation Engineering from Dalian University of Technology and his M.E. degree in Traffic and Transportation from Southeast University. His research interests include multimodal data fusion in intelligent transportation systems based on deep learning and data analytics. Outside of work, Shangkun enjoys staying active by going to the gym and playing basketball.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yuran Sun<\/span><\/h6>\n

Ph.D. student, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Email: yuransun@ufl.edu<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yuran Sun received her B.S degree in Statistics and Financial Mathematics from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and her M.S degree in Statistics from National University of Singapore. Her research interests are the application of interpretable machine learning models and data analytics. She is currently working on evacuation decision prediction and destination analysis. Yuran is passionate about learning languages. She is learning French, Korean and Cantonese.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Xiaojian Zhang<\/span><\/h6>\n

Ph.D. student, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

Email: xiaojianzhang@ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Xiaojian Zhang received his B. E. degree in transportation from Southwest Jiaotong University. He is currently studying ridesourcing demand prediction and demand-responsive transit simulation. Xiaojian has a strong interest in the application of machine-learning techniques. He also enjoys playing the piano and watching basketball and soccer games.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

undergraduate & M.S. StudentS<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Yilong Dai<\/span><\/h6>\n

M.S. student, Computer Science, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: daiyilong@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Yilong Dai is a M.S student in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida. He received his bachelor\u2019s degree in Software Engineering from Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University. He loves machine learning and application development. He also loves to play basketball.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Sara Garces<\/span><\/h6>\n

Undergraduate student, Civil Engineering, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: saragarces@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Sara Garces is a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Florida majoring in Civil Engineering. She is interested in sustainability measures within the field, as well as transportation to understand communities and networks. Sara enjoys all types of crafts, gaming, and playing boardgames with friends.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Matthew Mapa<\/span><\/h6>\n

Undergraduate student, Computer Science, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: matthewmapa@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Matthew Mapa is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Statistics. He is interested in the applications of data science and artificial intelligence towards issues like transport equity. Outside of work, Matthew enjoys playing tennis and volleyball and baking.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Ally Recalde<\/span><\/h6>\n

Undergraduate\/M.S. student, Geography, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: arecalde@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Ally Recalde\u00a0is currently an M.S. student in the Department of Geography at the University of Florida. She also received her bachelor\u2019s degree in Geography from UF in May 2024. Her interests lie in understanding human-environment interactions, with a particular interest in using GIS to model social vulnerability and risks management. Outside of work, she enjoys photography, swimming, and hiking around the U.S.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Joshua Salim<\/span><\/h6>\n

Undergraduate student, Data Science, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: joshua.salim@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Joshua Salim is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida majoring in Data Science. He is interested in applying machine learning models and artificial intelligence to real-world situations. Outside of school and work, Joshua loves to workout and play basketball.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Zhuoqun Xue<\/span><\/h6>\n

M.S. student, Computer Science, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: zhuoqun.xue@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Zhuoqun Xue received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science<\/span> from Xiamen University in 2022, and he is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Florida, where he has a strong interest in deep learning as well as computer vision. Outside of school, he likes to go to the gym and play basketball.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

Jordan Yu<\/span><\/h6>\n

Undergraduate student, Data Science, University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Email: jordanyu@ufl.edu<\/a><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Jordan Yu is a graduate in Data Science from December 2024. He is passionate about statistical modeling and the application of machine learning models to solve complex problems. In his free time, Jordan enjoys playing musical instruments, running, and competing in table tennis.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Group photos<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Past Students <\/b>(and their first job placement)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Postdocs:<\/h5>\n

Dr. Luyu Liu (2023-2024): Assistant Professor, Auburn University<\/p>\n

Ph.D. Students:<\/h5>\n

Dr. Yiming Xu (2019-2023): Postdoc, University of Texas at Austin<\/p>\n

Dr. Shirin Noei (2019-2020): Research Assistant Professor, Tennessee Tech University<\/p>\n

Dr. Hossein Arshad (Visiting Scholar, 2023): Postdoc, Norwegian University of Science and Technology<\/p>\n

M.S. StudentS:<\/h5>\n

Mr. Dharmam Savani (2022-2023)<\/p>\n

Mr. Ruoyang Xiong (2021-2022): Senior Software Engineer, L&T Technology Services<\/p>\n

Ms. Lin Su (2021-2022): Ph.D. student, University of Texas at Austin<\/p>\n

Mr. Yepeng Liu (2021-2022): Ph.D. student, University of Central Florida<\/p>\n

Ms. Tingshan Pan (2021-2022)<\/p>\n

Mr. Ningzhe Xu (2020-2021): Ph.D. student, University of Alabama<\/p>\n

Mr. Zhuoxuan Cao (2020-2021): Ph.D. student,\u00a0University of Maryland, College Park<\/p>\n

Mr. Mudit Paliwal (2020-2021): Product management analyst, WR Berkley<\/p>\n

Mr. Kaitai Yang (2020-2021): Ph.D. student, University of Utah<\/p>\n

UNDERGRADUATE students:<\/h5>\n

Mr. Jay Nibhanupudy (2024-2025)<\/p>\n

Ms. Aubrey Dolbeck (2024)<\/p>\n

Ms. Ana Forrister (2022-2023): M.S. student, Erasmus University Rotterdam<\/p>\n

Mr. Erik Huang (2022): Ph.D. student, Northwestern University<\/p>\n

Ms. Qi Zheng (2021-2022)<\/p>\n

Mr. Alex Wu (2020-2021): Capital markets analyst, One American Bank<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director Xilei Zhao, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida Email:\u00a0xilei.zhao@essie.ufl.edu Google Scholar | ResearchGate | Linkedin | Twitter\u00a0 Dr. Xilei Zhao (\u8d75\u66e6\u857e) is an assistant professor in Transportation Engineering at the University of Florida, where she leads the Smart, Equitable, Resilient Mobility Systems (SERMOS) Lab. She received a Master’s degree in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-sidebar-none.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-23","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1705,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions\/1705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sermos-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}