Donald Katz

Last Wednesday through Friday, I attended the Fulbright Pre-departure Orientation for U.S. Scholars and Students Going to South and Central Asia. Held in Washington, D.C., the orientation is the first chance new Fulbrights have to meet others going to their country, meet the staff from the U.S. Department of State and the Institute for International Education, and get questions answered regarding their award.

As a returning student, I hosted the Bangladesh country session for the nine new Fulbright Students and five new Fulbright Scholars. Facilitating along with me was Geoffrey Hiller, a Fulbright Scholar from 2008-2009, who lectured at the Independent University of Bangladesh on interactive media. For the session, I produced a 16-page briefing on topics new Fulbrights to Bangladesh might find useful. You can view that document here and it is also posted in the Writings section. Below is a photo of our session room with some of the new Fulbrights to Bangladesh. I really enjoyed meeting them and getting to share stories and advice about life in Dhaka.

On Monday June 15, I participated as a panelist in a webinar for potential Fulbright applicants. This particular webinar was for applicants to South and Central Asia, and I was joined by another Fulbright alumnus, Scott Sorrell who did his Fulbright in Nepal last year, and a another Fulbright student who had just received a Fulbright to go to India next year. The format was a roundtable discussion of our experiences applying and researching abroad.

I was invited to participate by the Institute of International Education who manages the Fulbright for students. The webinar was watched by over sixty potential Fulbright applicants. In the webinar, just over an hour long, each us alumni gave a ten minute talk on our time in our respective countries and what our experiences were with the application process. As we talked, a slideshow of photographs from our time in our respective countries ran for the viewers to see. After, a question and answer period moderated by Tony Claudino of IIE was ran.  The viewers messaged in their questions to Mr. Claudino, who then read them aloud for the alumni panelists to respond to.

The next webinar of this type, which I might be a panelist for, is Monday August 3.

I received notice this past week from the National Science Foundation that I earned an Honorable Mention in this year’s Graduate Research Fellowship competition. This was the final item I was waiting to hear back on from my round of applications this year.

Two weeks ago the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association held its Championship Regatta at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  I attended the regatta with my former North Carolina State University rowing team.

It was not until after the regatta that I was alerted by one of the current NC State coxswains that my likeness was on the SIRA Champioship Regatta’s t-shirt. He scanned the shirt he had purchased there and sent me the image, and sure enough, the single sculler on the bottom was me! Knowing roughly where that photo would be from, I scoured the photos I have on my laptop and found the original picture they used: a picture of me racing in the Men’s Senior B Lightweight Single Heats at the 2006 Canadian Henley in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. This is from the summer when I was a member of Undine Barge Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I have been trying to get in contact with Bob Jaugstetter, the regatta director of the SIRA Championship and head coach of Tulane Rowing, but have had no success so far.

The t-shirt scan and the likely original photo are below:

The final study report from my internship over the winter at the Regional Plan Association has been posted in the Writings section. Entitled Assessing Increased Rail Speeds in the Northeast Corridor, it summarizes the issues facing the Northeast Megaregion’s rail backbone, and what could be done to improve it.

For the summer, I have come on board as a research assistant on a project at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education. This research center is located on NC State’s Centennial Campus. I found myself here after emailing my friend and former classmate (while he was still a PhD candidate) Dr. Bastian Schroeder who works in their Highway Systems Group.

The project I am working on is a study of an all-weather paint product for use in work zones, headed up by my former mentor Dr. Joseph Hummer. The new pavement marking was developed by 3M and tested earlier at the Texas Transportation Institute, but we have been contracted by 3M to study it through a field evaluation. Typical pavement markings are retroreflective in dry conditions through the use of glass beads embedded in the paint, but when it rains, they do a poor job reflecting the headlights back to the user. The 3M system has special elements that are retroreflective even when under a layer of water, making it safer for the user to drive in dark rainy conditions. The image below shows a microscopic closeup of the 3M system with both glass beads and 3M’s specially designed elements. The two following show pavement markings without the 3M elements and with the 3M elements. In both of those, the image on the right shows the lane lines’ retroreflectivity in wet conditions. Note how the lane lines are much more difficult to see without the 3M elements when under water.

In our experiment we are choosing work zones that will require lane shifts in Wake and other neighboring counties in North Carolina.  Our goal is to see how drivers react to the different lane markings in nighttime rainy conditions. To gather this data, we are monitoring the placement of the pavement markings, and setting up cameras at the work sites to collect video of vehicles operating in nighttime rainy conditions. For me, it means I’m out in the field a lot with my hardhat and orange vest setting up cameras, running retroreflective tests on the lane lines, and overseeing their placement by contractors. It will be an exciting summer.

I took the image below during my first day in the field on I-85 near Henderson, NC. On the left is the standard pavement marking with only glass beads. On right is the 3M pavement marking with the 3M’s retroreflective elements also dropped onto the paint with the glass beads.

In order to help fund my graduate studies, I was recently awarded a Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellowship by the Federal Highway Administration. I had to quickly notify Georgia Tech so that the award could be processed. Although I did not receive the top level of funding, the version of the fellowship I received provides funds aimed to help students attend the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, held every January in Washington, D.C.

My graduate school decision process is finally complete, I have chosen to attend Georgia Tech starting this autumn. My advisor will be Dr. Michael Meyer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. At Georgia Tech, I intend to pursue a dual degree program to earn a Master of Science in Civil Engineering and a Master of City and Regional Planning. Narrowing my choices down took a lot of thought and I spent time considering all aspects of each school. After visiting all the programs I was still considering three: Georgia Tech, Berkeley, and Texas. It was very difficult to make the final choice as each school and program offered something I wanted unique to that place. But now I am headed for Atlanta in August.

On April 3, I attended MIT’s visitation day for prospective students in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. After a breakfast for all students visiting the department, those of us who were accepted into the Master of Science in Transportation program, about twenty of us, were taken by Dr. Joseph Sussman to go through our day of activities. Various research groups presented what their current research is about before we headed to lunch. In the afternoon we were provided time to visit the two research groups we were most interested in so we could  ask questions, in which I chose to hear from Dr. Joseph Ferreira in Urban Planning and then John Attanucci and Mikel Murga from Transit.

One interesting aspect of this visit was a chance to listen to a talk by James A. Aloisi, Massachusett’s Secretary of Transportation. As part of a speaker series at MIT, he was discussing the issues facing the Commonwealth and the ways he is hoping to take progressive steps to solve them. I was glad the department allowed us to sit on this talk, it made the visit unique. In considering all my potential schools, I had already evaluated the lecture series they have running, and I applaud MIT for showcasing it to us.

After a Q&A session with current students, we were brought to a reception to interact with them as we pleased. The evening ended with them taking us out in Boston to eat, drink, bowl, and shoot pool. I enjoyed the visit because it had the most variety of events throughout the day of schools I have been to so far. Boston of course is a great city, and I relished the chance to go up for the weekend. I also got to take Amtrak’s Northeast Regional train there and back.

On March 19, the University of California-Berkeley’s transportation engineering faculty and students hosted myself and four other potential graduate students. This was not the main visitation for prospective transportation students, which on April 10 clashed with my family trip to Cleveland, but instead was an Open House for the entire Civil and Environment Engineering (CEE) Department. At least 200 students were there, but again, only five for transportation. About 40 more will show up on April 10.

With this day not being as big of a day as the later visitation, we spent most of the day with professors, and were able to meet the students later at night for dinner. I was contacted late to set up a stay with a current graduate student, and had already arranged to couchsurf at someone’s place in Berkeley (first time actually couchsurfing!) It worked out well, and my couchsurfing host showed me parts of Berkeley I would not have seen otherwise.

The visitation day consisted of an opening breakfast hosted by the CEE department, meetings with faculty, a lunch from CEE, and dinner with graduate students. As a group, we had the chance to meet all the faculty currently on campus (two are on sabbatical, but we caught one real quick in the building.) I did not get to see much of where my workspace would be, and I missed out on seeing their transportation library which is one of the best in the country. Instead I saw lot of campus, taking several chances to walk around it. It is perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen. The professors fielded all our questions and were excited to remind us about the breadth the program offers. After meeting them, I felt I would most likely end up working Dr. Adib Kanafani, Dr. Joan Walker, or Dr. Mike Cassidy. But at Berkeley, unlike the others, I will have a stronger tie to the City and Regional Planning department, and I am told I need to talk to Dr. Robert Cervero there.

Berkeley seemed to be a very exciting place, and along with the entire Bay Area, I see why people enjoy living there. This was my first time in Northern California, and I could tell how different its vibe was from other parts of the country. This feeling was strengthened by my stopover to see friends in Palo Alto.