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Urban Planning Ph.D. is UC Transportation Student of the Year
Posted on February 02, 2009
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| Doug Houston |
Doug Houston, who was named the University of California Transportation Student of the Year, received his award at the annual banquet of the Council of University Transportation Centers held this January in Washington, D.C.
Houston, who received his Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the UCLA School of Public Affairs in 2008 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the UCLA School of Public Health, was selected from among outstanding nominees from several other UC campuses, said Brian Taylor, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Urban Planning as well as director of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at UCLA.
Students of the Year are selected based on their accomplishments in areas including technical merit and research, academic performance, professionalism, and leadership. The event is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation and is part of the annual Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting. Houston was selected for his research supporting the transportation and infrastructure planning process by enhancing tools for identifying the land-use and public health impacts of the goods-movement sector.
Houston’s research focuses on the near-roadway air pollution impacts of goods movement and transportation corridors and builds on field and health studies which indicate that vehicle exhaust, especially diesel truck exhaust, and associated health effects are highly concentrated immediately downwind of major roadways. His dissertation draws from original heavy duty container truck counts in communities near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to document the temporal and spatial distribution of diesel truck traffic on surface streets in adjacent communities.
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