Each year at the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Annual meeting in January, one student from each UTC throughout the United States is recognized as the most outstanding student of the year. This year, at the 90^th TRB annual meeting held in Washington, DC, Nathan Belz, a Doctor of Philosophy candidate in Civil Engineering, won this prestigious award.

During his first two years at the TRC, Belz’s research efforts focused on the viability of transit in rural areas GIS modeling, and characteristics of second-by-second driving style including a large field data collection. At the 89^th annual TRB meeting in January 2010, Belz presented “Spatial Models for the Statewide Evaluation of Transit-supportive Zones.” He recently presented this work at the 19^th TRB Rural Public and Intercity Bus Transportation Conference held in Burlington, Vermont, where he won the student paper award.  His primary areas of transportation expertise include driver behavior and gap-acceptance at roundabouts, operational analysis and modeling of roundabouts, and transportation applications of GIS.

Belz received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Maine in 2006 and 2008, respectively. In September 2008, Nathan Belz began pursuing a Ph.D. in civil engineering with a transportation engineering concentration at the University of Vermont.  His advisor, Lisa Aultman-Hall is the Director of the TRC. Belz has volunteered for many events including the Burlington, Vermont CarShare program and is an active member of both the Vermont and Maine ASCE chapters. He often participates in public meeting and forums related to land use and transportation policy in local communities.