David Anton is a second-year student in the Master in Public Administration program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Prior to his graduate studies, David served as policy advisor for Argentina’s Federal Government in the areas of transit planning and affordability. He was also a policy advisor for Argentina’s Presidency of the G20 Economic Forum, supporting the harmonization of regulations concerning public-private partnerships for infrastructure development among country members. David’s September 11th Memorial internship is at NYMTC, where he is studying the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agency’s socioeconomic and demographic forecasts and travel demand models. The project is focused on assessing how the increase in telework due to the pandemic impacts location of job opportunities across the New York Metropolitan Area and commuting patterns over time.

Seth Kerr is pursuing a Master of Urban Planning degree at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. Before graduate school, he served as a United States Army Officer specializing in medical logistics for eight years. During his service, Seth spent six years living in Kenya and Germany. Seth’s internship is also at NYMTC and his planning project focuses on helping NYMTC improve its long-range infrastructure needs assessment and financial forecasting processes. He has had the opportunity to undertake benchmarking research involving regional councils and state DOTs across the country for best practices. Seth is also helping NYMTC develop internal procedural checklists for long-range financial forecasting.

Students Selected for the 2020-2021 Current Academic Year

Carla Tejada is a Ph.D. student in Transportation Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY). Before joining CCNY, Carla obtained a master’s degree in Logistics and Supply Chain from the University of Maryland at College Park and a graduate certificate in Supply Chain Management from MIT. She also spent several years in the industry in companies such as DHL Express and SONY. 

Carla’s September 11th Memorial Program internship is with The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) with the Pedestrian Unit. NYC is the city with the highest number of pedestrian trips in the United States. Carla’s work focuses on developing a Pedestrian Network Flow Model that will allow NYCDOT to identify pedestrian generators, dense walking areas, and walking trip flows within NYC. This model will provide information to the New York City Comprehensive Pedestrian Map that will help create more rationality in the decision-making process within NYC streets.

Niloufar Nouri is pursuing her Ph.D. in the civil engineering program at CCNY. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental engineering in her home country, Iran. Her doctoral research activity lies in the intersection of resilient infrastructure systems and data-driven environmental risk assessment. Along with her Ph.D. studies, she has worked as an adjunct lecturer at CUNY Bronx Community College. Niloufar has also been involved in various data-oriented projects while working as a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (CESSRST). Niloufar’s September 11th Memorial Program research at NYMTC focuses on evaluating new methods of collecting travel data and identifying how such methods can complement traditional travel surveys. She is identifying potential alternative travel data sources such as cellular data and Location Based Services (LBS). Niloufar is analyzing the methodology, statistical properties, strengths, and limitations of these travel data sources.