Bloustein doctoral students Angela Johnson-Rodriguez, Wei San Loh and Ellen O. White are the 2022 recipients of Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships. The fellowships are awarded by the Federal Highway Administration for the Department of Transportation, and are given to doctoral students for their work on transportation planning and policy.
The Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) awards merit-based fellowships to students pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines. This nationally competitive program advances the transportation workforce by helping to attract the nation’s brightest minds to the field of transportation, encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees, and helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry. DDETFP is administered by the Federal Highway Administration and generally results in 150-200 grants annually, subject to the availability of funds.
Angela Johnson-Rodriguez is a second year PhD Student in Planning and Public Policy. Her research is focused on the connections between race, identity, and transportation justice. So far, she has contributed to a series of papers investigating the re-framing of automated enforcement to garner support. Before returning to academia Spring 2021, she was the Statewide Organizing Director of Transportation for Massachusetts and a member of the Massachusetts Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board. Angela is also President Emeritus of the board of the Boston Cyclists Union, where she served as a member for six years. She earned an MS in Urban and Regional Policy from Northeastern University and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies, with a concentration in Urban and Public Affairs, from the University of Texas at Arlington.
Wei San Loh is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her research interest centers around the decarbonization of transportation and social equity. She currently investigates the concerns surrounding used-electric vehicles and accessibility to electric charging stations for lower-income households. Before starting the Ph.D. program, she was a research analyst at the World Bank contributing to analytical work for policy reforms. Wei San holds a Master’s degree in International and Development Economics from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Soka University of America.
Ellen Oettinger White is a transportation planner, spatial analyst, and landscape designer who uses a variety of digital tools as well as qualitative methods to analyze the environmental effects of transportation policy, practice, and infrastructure. In her dissertation, she is investigating large-scale roadside tree removal as carried out by state highway agencies, who justify the practice with a 1960s engineering concept called the “clear zone.” Prior to beginning a PhD, Ellen received a master’s in urban planning from Harvard and a master’s in landscape architecture from Rutgers. She is secretary of the Transportation Research Board’s Landscape and Environmental Design Committee and was a 2021-22 Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellow for Innovation and Leadership.