About

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, majoring in Transportation Engineering with a minor in Statistics & Data Science. I currently work as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Applied Transportation Sciences (CATS), directed by my PhD advisor, Dr. Yao-Jan Wu. Previously, I served as the Manager of the Smart Transportation Lab (STL) and as the President of the University of Arizona Institute of Transportation Engineers (UAITE) Student Chapter for the academic year 2023-24. You can find my latest news and updates here.

Work & Research

My fundamental problem-solving approach is grounded in theory-driven foundational understanding of a problem, followed by empirical analysis and decision-making. This principle shapes my PhD research, where I focus on understanding traffic operations and safety problems from first principles, before engineering potential data-driven solutions by integrating statistics, machine learning, and operations research tools.

Some notable research contributions during my PhD include developing an XGBoost-based optimization framework for reidentifying vehicles approaching an intersection, empirically analyzing drivers’ stop/go dilemma when facing the yellow light, developing an algorithmic model to predict experienced travel time based on multi-source traffic data, and formulating a real-time queue length estimation model using highly noisy data of vehicle detection from video sensors. My prior research utilized operations research tools and investigated optimizing the transportation network of a large-scale, cross-country petroleum supply chain under demand uncertainty and multi-objective settings. Details of my ongoing and past works are available here.

My works were sponsored by

Background & Timeline

I graduated with a Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering in 2019 and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering in 2015, both from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Prior to starting my PhD in August 2021, I worked for 4.5 years as a Deputy Manager at Nepal Oil Corporation Limited (NOCL), a government company managing import, transportation, storage, and distribution of petroleum products. In this role, I managed procurement and contract of medium-scale civil construction and consulting tasks, assisted senior project managers and the department director on large-scale projects, and mentored three junior engineers and two overseers. Before my tenure at NOCL, I undertook similar responsibilites as a Civil Engineer at Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board (NITDB), a governmental authority managing dry ports in Nepal. Details of my prior research and industry experiences are available in my resume.