Mobility21 UTC Honors “Student of the Year” Lily Hanig at 32nd Annual USDOT Awards Ceremony

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January 7, 2023

Carnegie Mellon University student Lily Hanig was honored tonight as Mobility21 University Transportation Center’s “Student of the Year” at the Council of University Transportation Center’s annual awards event.

2022 Students of the Year

Annually, the United States Department of Transportation honors the most outstanding student from each participating University Transportation Center for his/her achievements and promise for future contributions to the transportation field. Students of the year are selected based on their accomplishments in such areas as technical merit and research, academic performance, professionalism, and leadership.

Picture of Lilly receiving her award from Dr. Firas Ibrahim, Director of the U.S. DOT’s Office of Research, Development, and Technology, and Caesar Singh, Director, University Transportation Centers (UTC) Grants Program. — Lilly receiving her award from Dr. Firas Ibrahim, Director of the U.S. DOT’s Office of Research, Development, and Technology, and Caesar Singh, Director, University Transportation Centers (UTC) Grants Program.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 Institute houses Mobility21, the National University Transportation Center for Improving Mobility. Students from CMU, University of Pennsylvania, The Ohio State University, or Community College of Allegheny County were eligible for the Mobility21 UTC nomination.

Mobility21 team with Lilly at the Student of the Year Awards DInner

More about our winner:

Lily Hanig, the Mobility21 National University Transportation Center for Improving Mobility Student of the Year.

Lily Hanig is a Ph.D. student in Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on analyzing transportation system equity during 1) disruptive events (e.g., COVID-19 and climate change) and 2) energy transitions. Her current work assesses long-distance coverage of electric vehicles (EV) chargers along corridors in the US and future work will look at siting of EV chargers at the community level to optimize for equitable distribution and low emissions. Lily is excited to be working towards a more equitable and decarbonized transportation system during a period of disruption by new technologies in the field.

In 2022, Lily won the Herbert L. Toor award for outstanding research paper submitted to the qualifier exam, “COVID-19 Public Transit Precautions: Trade-offs Between Risk Reduction and Costs,” and interned at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on the Mobility, Behaviors, and Advanced Powertrains team.

Educating, recruiting and training new workers is critical to managing our country’s infrastructure safely and efficiently. Mobility21 strives to help develop a transportation workforce capable of designing and maintaining the complex transportation systems of tomorrow.

Help us congratulate our 2023 UTC Student of the Year!

To learn more about the University Transportation Centers’ Student of the Year awards please click here.