Two recent graduates of West Virginia University – Colin Frosch and David Palley – will continue their studies at the graduate level with support from the highly competitive Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship program.

Administered by the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Transportation, Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships are extremely competitive and are designed to bring innovation and enhance the breadth and scope of knowledge of the entire transportation community in the United States. Winners receive a financial award and are invited to attend the annual Transportation Research Board meeting held in January.

Frosch, from Fairmont, and Palley, from Walnut Creek, California, will begin graduate studies in the fall in civil engineering in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. Both will be conducting research with Avinash Unnikrishnan, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and David Martinelli, professor civil and environmental engineering.

“Colin and David were outstanding undergraduate students with a perfect academic record and extensive extracurricular activities,” said Unnikrishnan. “They have undergraduate research experience and have worked on a wide variety of research projects funded by the Department of Transportation, the National Science Foundation and the College’s Civil Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. They fully deserve the recognition that comes with earning the Eisenhower Fellowship.”

Frosch will continue his research in transportation engineering design and project management, most notably as it relates to WVU’s downtown campus. He has been working to develop a shared space concept in front of the Mountainlair, which is known for its traffic congestion. Specific topics he will be looking at include improving simulations, literature reviews of other shared space examples, cost estimations and ADA and other regulatory compliance issues.

“This fellowship will allow me to diversify my experience and skill set through this unique and innovative shared space design project,” Frosch said. “I anticipate being able to see many sides of the transportation engineering process from conception, planning and design, to implementation and review.

“My goal is to someday apply these skills to new projects as a transportation engineer for a private consulting firm,” Frosch added. “Later in my career I hope to pursue a project management position.” Frosch received the Order of Augusta in 2015 – WVU’s most prestigious student honor. He spent the past two summers as a transportation intern for Atkins North America in Austin, Texas, working on large roadway and traffic design projects in and around Texas.

Palley’s research will be focused on improving school zone traffic safety in West Virginia through the implementation of traffic control devices. This research, which has been funded by West Virginia Division of Highways, is now in its second phase. In phase one, the research team, which is led by Martinelli, explored possible issues associated with emerging travel patterns in modern-day school commutes including schools located along high-speed routes, increases in student driving and driver distraction.

Palley will also be working to develop methodology to optimally allocate resources in a downtown area of a city to improve the network of bike lanes, thus encouraging bicycle ridership.

“Several possible career paths interest me, but transportation planning and consulting are particularly interesting to me,” said Palley, who was a four-year member of the WVU swimming and diving team. “Being a recipient of this prestigious award will help me pay for my graduate education and my pursuit of a career in transportation engineering.”

In addition to being named a WVU Outstanding Senior, Palley was one of five WVU student-athletes to receive the Dr. Gerald Lage Academic Achievement Award, the Big 12 Conference’s highest academic honor.

-WVU-

mcd/07/28/15

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