Hello, I’m Grant! I’m currently pursuing my Master’s in Transportation and Traffic Engineering. Since elementary school, when my dad and I would ride to school on a tandem bike, I’ve loved commuting by bike anywhere I can. You may even see me riding around town on my six-foot-tall bike, a personal creation of two bike frames welded together. From riding bikes so much, I started to pay attention to how our cities design their streets.

At the same time, I started studying civil engineering because I was interested in working on large-scale projects. I started looking up articles on city planning and safety, and learned about bicycle traffic stress levels, walk score, link-node ratio, and other concepts I’d experienced intuitively as a cyclist and pedestrian. I was really pleased to learn that the questions and ideas I’ve been collecting for years had research papers, explanations, and formulas. This was the point at which I decided I wanted to pursue a master’s in transportation and begin researching cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and safety.

My thesis focuses on bicycle planning and safety. I am currently conducting research on measuring a cyclist’s psychological stress in response to interactions with motor vehicles and various urban infrastructure. This topic not only interests me personally but also professionally. I believe it is very important to study to understand what may cause a potential cyclist to choose not to bike. I am excited to be on the team that gets to conduct this research!