July 2, 2003

The Board of Directors of CTRF is pleased to announce the four scholarship winners that are being awarded scholarships for the 2003-2004 academic term.

Isabelle Beaulac, Laval University, Department of Civil Engineering
Lina Kattan, University of Toronto, ITS Department, Ph.D.
Laurel Richl, University of British Columbia, Dept of Civil Engineering
Christine Wickens, York University, Department of Psychology

Bios will be posted in due course for each of these scholarship winners.  The winners will be "matched" to our corporate sponsors to be granted the "named scholarships" shortly.  CTRF wishes to thank once again the  sponsors for the current scholarship program, namely Bombardier, Canada Maritime Agencies Ltd., CN, Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian Transportation Education Foundation, Government of Quebec, and many other personal donations.

BOMBARDIER SCHOLARSHIP ($4000)

Isabelle Beaulac, Dept of Civil Engineering, Laval University, Quebec

Current Program : M.Sc. Road Geotechnical Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Universit? Laval

Supervisor : Guy DOR?, Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Universit? Laval

Previous Degree : B. Eng. Geological Engineering, Universit? Laval, May 2003

Pendant mes ?tudes de premier cycle en g?nie g?ologique, j'ai remport? le deuxi?me prix au niveau canadien de la Soci?t? Canadienne de G?otechnique dans le cadre d'un projet d'?quipe intitul? ?valuation du potentiel de liqu?faction du Delta de Fraser. J'ai ?galement particip? en tant qu'assistante de recherche ? la r?daction d'un rapport technique pr?sent? au Minist?re des Transports du Qu?bec (MTQ) dans le cadre du projet de recherche sur le D?veloppement d'un essai simple et rapide pour l'estimation du potentiel de s?gr?gation.

Mon sujet de ma?trise, portant sur la caract?risation et sur l'?valuation des impacts de la fonte du perg?lisol sur les infrastructures de transport a?rien et routier du MTQ au Nunavik, fait partie int?grante d'un projet de recherche ? long terme qui vise ? la fois ? la compr?hension et ? la quantification des effets de tassement et de d?gel sur la performance des chauss?es et des pistes dans les r?gions nordiques. J'ai entrepris mes ?tudes de deuxi?me cycle en mai 2003. Je compte aller poursuivre une ann?e d'?tudes ? l'Universit? de l'Alaska ? Fairbanks en 2003-2004 dans le but d'am?liorer mes connaissances sur le ph?nom?ne de d?gel du perg?lisol et dans le but d'?tudier le type de solutions utilis?es par le Department of Transportations of Alaska qui a permis de pr?venir et d'enrayer les tassements occasionn?s par l'augmentation de la temp?rature terrestre.

? la suite de mes ?tudes de deuxi?me cycle, j'aimerais pouvoir travailler dans une firme de g?nie-conseil sur des projets d'envergure nationale et internationale comme charg?e de projets.

During my undergraduate studies in Geological Engineering, I have won the second price on the Canadian level of the Canadian Geotechnical Society in a group project called ?Evaluation of the Potential of Liquefaction of the Delta of Fraser?. I have also taken part in the writing of a report presented at the Ministry of Transportations of Quebec (MTQ) within the framework of the research project on the Development of a Simple and Fast Test to Estimate the Segregation Potential.

The subject of my master thesis, dealing with the characterization and the evaluation of the permafrost thaw impacts on the road and air transport infrastructures of the MTQ in Nunavik, is an important part of a long-term research project which aims both to the comprehension and the quantification of the settlement and thaw effects on the performance of the roadways and the runways in cold regions. I undertook my graduate studies in May 2003. I intend to study one year at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 2003-2004 in order to improve my knowledge on the permafrost thaw and to study the type of solutions used by Department of Transportations of Alaska which has made it possible the prevention and the stopping of the settlements caused by the increase of the earth temperature.

I intend to gain international experience in the transportation engineering field in order to work as a professional engineer on national and international projects in the private sector.

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY SCHOLARSHIP ($4000)

Lina Kattan, University of Toronto, ITS Department, Ph.D.

Lina joined the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) group at the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto (UofT) in September 2000 as a PhD student. Lina has received her Bachelor and Master Degrees from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. She has started her career in transportation with a stronger inclination towards Transportation Planning. She specialized in the analysis of Travel patterns and the identification of War induced distortions to trip patterns in Beirut using computer simulation. Before enrolling in the Ph.D. program at UofT, Lina was working as a Transportation Engineer with Team-International. She also served as a consultant to three companies, namely: IBI (Boston), Solidere and Dar-Al-Handassah in Lebanon. Currently she is the Rapporteur on the Atlantic research Project - Canadian Participation, conducting research on Network Monitoring and Traffic Management and Control practices in Canada as compared to US and Europe.

Since she started at the ITS Center at the University of Toronto, Lina's interests broadened into the area of intelligent transportation systems with emphasis on advanced traffic management and demand estimation which are the focus of her dissertation research. Her career objective is to foresee an academic position in transportation focusing on ITS.

CN SCHOLARSHIP ($4000)

Christine Wickens, York University, Department of Psychology

Current Program: PhD, Dept. of Psychology, York University

Area of Research:

Christine has spent the last three years studying various psychological issues related to transportation. She has developed a content analysis coding scheme that was used to analyze complaints of aggressive driving behaviour received by the Ontario Provincial Police. In June 2003, Christine presented the results of this analysis at the thirteenth biennial Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference. She has also conducted research focusing on the experience of state driver stress as a function of occupational stress, trait driver stress, and congestion level.

In addition to the Transportation Industry Scholarship that she was awarded by the CTRF in 2001, Christine has also been the recipient of several other past honours including the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the University of Toronto Book Award, and both the Paskal and the Forrin Prizes from the University of Toronto Psychology Department.

Continuing with her focus on psychological issues of transportation, Christine's dissertation will examine the role of individual difference variables in the impact of cellular telephone use on driving performance.  Are certain individuals more susceptible to distraction while driving? This research should expand our understanding of how cellular telephones may impair driving performance and safety.

TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRY SCHOLARSHIP ($4000)

Laurel Richl, Ph.D., Dept of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia

Current Program: PhD Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia

Laurel has just started in the PhD program in transportation engineering this fall after completing a Masters degree in transportation engineering at the University of British Columbia earlier this year. Her Bachelors degree is from the University of Alberta. She wants to extend the research that she was doing for her Masters thesis on the application of reliability theory to geometric design of roads by developing a framework for the geometric design process for roads and highways. The framework would include tools that are currently used today such as the road safety audit, design consistency evaluation and tools developed from the application of reliability analysis to geometric design. It is hoped that the framework would help guide transportation engineers to develop safer roads for all road users.