Congratulations to Spencer Aeschliman on his NSF GRF Award

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Spencer Jeffrey Aeschliman on receiving the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Spencer’s proposed research is “Behavior dynamics and pattern identification in evolving transportation systems.” Seeks to demonstrate how different groups of people change their mobility patterns when the service & infrastructure quality, sustainability, and equity of “traditional” and “innovative” transportation technologies diverge. He will engage with local transportation agencies (e.g., RTA) and community-based mobility organizations for data collection and policy formulation, including supporting efforts to transfer academic research findings to communities and policymakers.

 

Spencer received his B.A. in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from Goshen College in 2019. Afterward, he interned at Argonne National Lab before taking on a full-time staff scientist position in the Energy Systems Division there. That was his first experience with transportation-adjacent research, which inspired him to apply for a Ph.D. here at Northwestern. Working in Dr. Amanda Stathopoulos’ lab, he is interested in applying econometric and data-driven methods to investigate the causes and dynamics of mobility behavior, especially as people face an evolving set of transportation options and varying infrastructure quality.

 

The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The purpose of the program is to increase the Nation’s human capacity by providing fellowships for early-career graduate students who pursue research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in NSF-supported disciplines. NSF Fellows are anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.

 

Link to 2023 NSF awardees