Leveraging the TSL Doctoral Travel Grant for a Unique Research Experience
For those of you who have not met me in the TSL community, my name is Michael Redmond. I recently finished my dissertation on reliable multi-modal transportation with lots of guidance from Professor Ann Campbell (University of Iowa) and Professor Jan Ehmke (University of Vienna). Since joining TSL, one of the most insightful aspects of the community has been the added perspective from different transportation research groups that help progress the works of individual researchers from across the world.
Michael and the Research Group at OVGU Magdeburg
I had the privilege of receiving the TSL Doctoral Travel Grant at the 2018 INFORMS Annual Conference, and in the subsequent summer, I set out for Magdeburg, Germany to study for over a month with Dr. Ehmke and his research group. During my time there, I was able to travel to the city whose transit network I was studying, meet with bus company representatives about the data, and ride parts of the network for a better understanding. This was immensely helpful in formulating a research plan that became the final chapter of my dissertation, Reliability in Public Transit Networks Considering Backup Itineraries. I will be presenting the research findings from this TSL Travel Grant experience at the upcoming INFORMS conference in my talk, Most Reliable Itinerary with Backups in Public Transportation, at 4:30 PM on November 13th if you are interested in attending virtually.
In addition to being able to develop my research through experience, I was also able to see what a research group looked like in another part of the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the group lunches, coffee breaks, and exploring the German countryside. The department was tight-knit and worked together on all tasks from teaching to conference preparation. It was an experience that I will never forget with lessons that I can apply for my future in academia.