PhD graduate Xinyi Wang has received an award for the best dissertation worldwide in the field of travel behavior.
The Eric Pas Dissertation Prize is given by the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research for the best dissertation in travel behavior research each calendar year.
“It is a highly competitive and prestigious award, and I could not be more proud of Xinyi,” said Professor Patricia Mokhtarian, Wang’s PhD Advisor. “Eric Pas, in whose honor the award is named, passed away at age 49. Eric and I were officemates and dear friends, so the award is especially meaningful to me.”
Wang’s thesis is titled, “The Teleworking Treatment Effect on Travel Behavior: An In-depth Exploration of Endogenous Switching Regression Models.”
Xinyi Wang, center, and Professor Patricia Mokhtarian, right, at the award ceremony.
Though Wang completed her thesis in 2023, it was selected for the award in 2024 and presented at the Transportation Research Board conference in January 2025.
Wang is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wang has received several accolades for her thesis. She was recognized with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Best PhD Dissertation Award and the Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Best Dissertation Award.
Wang joined Mokhtarian’s research group in the fall of 2017. Before completing her PhD, she obtained two master’s degrees at Georgia Tech – one in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Transportation Systems Engineering) and one in Industrial and Systems Engineering (Statistics).