Alyssa Ryan receives the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Grant and Fulbright Scholarship

Here is Alyssa Ryan talking about this great opportunity

This award provides doctoral candidates and young academics and scientists with a fully-funded opportunity to carry out research and continue their education in Germany with an academic adviser. The project I will be undertaking in Germany through this fellowship focuses on the investigation of methods to achieve higher levels of motorway safety through the modeling of infrastructure, human behavior, and survey data of German motorways. I will be working with Dr. Constantinos Antoniou, Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering at the Technical University of Munich in Munich, Germany. My fellowship and funding runs from October 1st, 2020 through May 31st, 2021.

Why I Decided to Apply:
I originally considered applying for research funding in Germany in the fall of 2018. After reaching out to the Office of National Scholarship & Advisement (ONSA) at UMass and and discussing my options with the Director, Madalina Akli, I decided it was the path I wanted to take. I connected with Dr. Constantinos Antoniou for the first time in the spring of 2019 after much networking and searching for the appropriate adviser for the project. With the assistance of my adviser, Dr. Michael Knodler, faculty members within the Transportation Engineering program, Madalina, and the rest of ONSA, I applied for both the Fulbright Student Program and the DAAD One-Year Research Grant last fall to conduct research with Dr. Antoniou in Germany. I was glad to have received Alternate Status for the Fulbright Student Program through this process and was thrilled to accept the DAAD Fellowship that will allow me to complete this research work.

About Myself & My Research:
I am a second year Ph.D. student in the Transportation Engineering program within the Civil Engineering Department. I completed my B.S. in Civil Engineering in December 2017 and M.S. in Civil Engineering in May 2019, both from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I grew up in a rural area in upstate New York and understand the increased safety risks of non-urban areas that impact so many people, including myself, on a personal level. My research focus on traffic safety reflects this recognition. I conduct traffic safety research in the areas of human factors, surface transportation design, and equitable processes and design with an emphasis on rural areas.

Fulbright Scholarship Awardee

Alyssa Ryan has also been awarded a 2020-2021 Fulbright Scholarship. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides grants for individually designed study/research projects or for English Teaching Assistant Programs. During their grants, Fulbrighters will meet, work, live with and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences.  The program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Through engagement in the community, the individual will interact with their hosts on a one-to-one basis in an atmosphere of openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom, thereby promoting mutual understanding.