KU Transportation Center Team
Leadership
Professor, Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering
Steve's research interests are in traffic control devices, highway design, highway safety, and work zone safety.
Lisa is Associate Director for Research, Partnership, and Innovation, and RTAP Director. Lisa also teaches in the Urban Planning Program in the School of Public Affairs and Administration.
Emily Wilder is an Associate Director of Business Operations at the University of Kansas Transportation Center. She is also the Director of the Kansas Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), the National LTAP Association's Liaison to the APWA, and the NLTAPA Partnership work group co-chair. Emily holds a M.S. in Management and Leadership and certificates from the Kansas Leadership Center in Leadership Teaching and Coaching.
Lisa is the Associate Director of Special Projects for the University of Kansas Transportation Center. Her areas of specialty include transportation safety, transportation planning, community planning, communications, and partnership development.
Staff
Nelda began her career with KDOT in 1987 after graduating from KU with a degree in Civil Engineering. Safety has been her focus - traffic engineering, permanent signing, work zone traffic control, and access management. She worked most recently for KDOT's Bureau of Local Projects as the Road Team Leader with a goal of assisting cities and counties with federal and state funded transportation projects.
Kara is the Communications Coordinator for the University of Kansas Transportation Center. Along with developing effective communications strategies throughout the center, she is responsible for the successful execution of annual conferences. Kara holds a Bachelor of Science in journalism and a Master of Fine Arts in writing. Kara has been in the event industry since 2016 as an event coordinator for Southeast Missouri State University's Show Me Center and Kansas City's T-Mobile Center.
Nikhila serves as an Assistant Transit Researcher for the KU Transportation Center. She is primarily involved in transit and other transportation-related research projects, along with RTAP projects. She has two Masters degrees from the University of Kansas, Construction Management with a focus of Transportation Engineering (2020) and Urban Planning with a specialization in Transportation Planning (2017). She earned her bachelors degree in Architecture and is a Licensed Architect in India.
Anne is Outreach Coordinator and lead trainer for the Kansas RTAP Program. She develops the annual Kansas RTAP training calendar, teaches RTAP classes statewide, trains other transit trainers in the state, and coordinates with partners of Kansas RTAP in ongoing service and new initiatives.
Megan Weinzirl (Hazelwood) graduated from the University of Kansas in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. She has over eight years of event management experience. Megan previously worked for Entercom Communications where she assisted with events such as Rockfest and, most recently, the KU Memorial Union, where she served as the Event Manager. As the Event Coordinator for the University of Kansas Transportation Center, she will coordinate workshops for the Kansas LTAP and RTAP programs.
Affiliated Faculty Researchers
Research interests in high quality, efficient, safe, health, and sustainable luminous and visual environments.
Research interests include geotechnical topics such as new design methods for unpaved roads, multi-tiered earth wall systems, geosynthetic reinforcements and soil improvement techniques.
Research interests in transportation engineering, traffic flow, highway capacity, and driver behavior.
Research interests include soil stabilization, flowable fill, site investigation methodology, and solid waste management.
Research interest in hydrology. Teaches LTAP training workshops in GIS applications to transportation.
