NDSU transportation and logistics doctoral students Ihsan Khan and Yun Zhou have been named 2020 Traffic Safety Scholars. The award includes a $1,000 scholarship to attend the 38th annual Lifesavers National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities, March 14-17, in Tampa, Florida.
Khan and Zhou are members of an elite group of 50 U.S. and international students selected through a competitive application process to attend Lifesavers, the nation’s largest and oldest gathering of highway safety professionals. The event showcases research, evidence-based strategies, proven countermeasures and promising new approaches for eliminating traffic deaths and reducing serious injuries.
Both students assist with traffic safety research at NDSU’s Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute. Khan and Zhou will kick off their Lifesaver’s experience on March 14 by learning about career opportunities from a panel of young traffic safety professionals working in the public and private sectors. They will continue a career discussion with state and national highway safety leaders at a reception convened in the scholars’ honor later that afternoon. During the next three days, the students will hear keynote presentations from some of the nation’s leading highway safety professionals and advocates and explore new technologies and programs.
They’ll also have the opportunity to participate in nearly 100 workshops and peer exchanges featuring leading experts in the fields of distracted and impaired driving and walking; child passenger, pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, teen and older driver safety; adult occupant protection; vehicle technology; law enforcement and criminal justice; commercial motor vehicles; roadway design; and more.
This is the fifth year of the Transportation Safety Scholars program, which showcases the diversity of opportunities in traffic safety and encourages students to pursue a career in a dynamic field that draws from engineering, education, and enforcement to communications, business, marketing, public health, political science, counseling and other disciplines.
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