UCLA Luskin Students Awarded for Scholarship in Transportation
Please join us in congratulating the following UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs students in receiving honors and awards in transportation scholarship.
Kelcie Ralph (PhD ’15), Professor at Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, has been awarded the Barclay Gibbs Jones Dissertation Prize for her dissertation, Analyzing the Nature of Recent Travel Changes for Young Adults in America, 1995 to 2009. Kelcie’s selection marks the first for a student from UCLA, though she joins many esteemed awardees from the University of California system.
The Barclay Gibbs Jones Dissertation Prize recognizes superior scholarship in a doctoral dissertation completed by a student enrolled in an ACSP-member school. The opportunity calls for theses that are original, well written, employ methods elegantly, offer lessons pertinent to central issues in the field of planning, and provide guidance about how planners or governments should make choices.

Josh Peterman, President of ITS California, with the 2015 Scholarship winners, Neda Massoud from UCI (left) and Zoe Unruh from UCLA (right).
Zoe Unruh (MURP ’16) has been awarded the Intelligent Transportation Systems of California Scholarship for advancing studies in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). While at UCLA, Zoe’s interests were in transportation infrastructure planning and how it affects societal and economic changes.
Two scholarships are awarded each year to students who are pursuing degree programs in an ITS related field, such as transportation planning, engineering, and transit policy. Along with Zoe, the other scholarship went to Neda Massoud, PhD Candidate in Civil Engineering at University of California Irvine.
To learn more about ITS California and annual scholarship opportunities, visit www.itscalifornia.org.
Casey Osborn (MURP ’15) has been honored as a Runner Up in the Transportation Planning Division (TPD) of the American Planning Association’s (APA) 2015 Student Paper Competition for her submission, Transportation’s Best Ideas for America’s “Best Idea”: The History of Alternative Transportation Funding in National Parks and Sustainable Funding Options for the Future
The Student Paper Competition awards outstanding student papers on current transportation planning or policy issues. The APA provides these awards to recognize and reward work completed for courses in PAB-accredited masters and undergraduate planning programs. The top two student papers are awarded.
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