Scholarships, Fellowships, Internships and Research Opportunities

This research will help researchers to understand the impacts of recent shifts to remote working and online shopping on transportation sustainability and infrastructure needs. Among other purposes, the data of this study will support the further development of the POLARIS transportation simulation system developed and maintained by Argonne National Laboratory – a U.S. Department of Energy research facility.

The study involves a survey app (Fourstep ) that participants will install on their phones. The app will track their daily trips in Chicago for two weeks and will ask participants for additional details on their daily activities via short surveys.

We are seeking motivated students with an interest in transportation to support the study activities during summer 2023. As an undergraduate student researcher, you will be involved in one or more of the following aspects of the study:

• Designing recruitment materials, reaching out to community organizations and large employers to get access to mailing lists, conducting online recruitment campaigns (e.g., via social media), and possibly traveling to Chicago to conduct in-person recruitment by distributing flyers at busy locations in the city.
• Providing support to participants who started the survey using the app on the phone. This may include email communications and phone calls to assist with technical issues.
• Managing study participants, answering questions about the study activities and surveys, and when needed, emailing study participants to encourage them to complete study activities.
• Setting up and managing a system to distribute gift cards or similar incentives to survey participants to incentivize participation and thank participants for their time and effort.
• Conducting preliminary data analyses and using results and experiences from the current survey to test and refine questions for a future survey that is planned for spring/summer 2024.

We are looking for students with a background in civil engineering, city and regional planning, marketing, or a related field. It is not yet clear whether this project will involve traveling to Chicago, but you should be able to do so if the need arises. Your travel expenses will be covered.

If you are interested or have any questions about this position, please do not hesitate to reach out to Prof. Andre Carrel (carrel.20@osu.edu).