NCST's 2021 Outstanding Student of the Year
Quick Summary
- The National Center for Sustainable Transportation is excited to announce our 2021 UTC Outstanding Student of the Year - Sarah Grajdura!
The National Center for Sustainable Transportation is excited to announce our 2021 University Transportation Center Outstanding Student of the Year: Sarah Grajdura! Sarah won this award as a result of her outstanding accomplishments and demonstration of both her ambition and leadership. Sarah is a Ph.D. candidate at University of California Davis studying Civil & Environmental Engineering.
Sarah’s research focuses on wildfire evacuation modeling and social equity in natural disasters. Her dissertation specifically centers around the evacuation of California residents during the Camp Fire, which devastated the town of Paradise and other Butte County communities three years ago. Her research will help to provide greater insight on what occurred in the fire, informing how evacuation planning efforts can be improved in the future. Sarah’s research efforts also include the development of the California Integrated Transportation Health Impact Model (ITHIM) for the California Air Resources Board and the investigation of policies related to the export of used vehicles to lower income countries for the World Bank.
Beyond her research efforts, Sarah co-founded the Transportation Equity and Mobility Justice Working Group UC Davis in 2019 and contributed to planning a University of California-wide class on transportation equity in 2020.