News

New publication in the Journal of Air Transport Management

Our latest article “Assessing Public Acceptance of Urban Air Mobility: Behavioral Insights” investigates public perception of urban air mobility (UAM) as a future travel mode and identifies potential adopter cohorts. Using stated preference data collected in Chicago, we estimate a hybrid choice model that accounts for both observable and latent heterogeneity in UAM acceptance behavior. The findings provide actionable insights to inform infrastructure investment, policy development, and technology deployment strategies that align with public attitudes and behavioral patterns in emerging air mobility systems.

​Posted on Sep 9, 2025

Fatemeh Nazari receives NASA award for “Trustworthy AI for Networked Air Safety!”

​The H-SMART Lab was selected by NASA to advance trustworthy AI for safety-critical, networked aviation environments.

​Posted on Sep 1, 2025

New publication in Multimodal Transportation

Our publication on “Autonomous Vehicle Adoption Behavior and Safety Concern: A Study of Public Perception” proposes a recursive trivariate econometric model that jointly estimates AV acceptance, perceived AV safety concern, and current annual vehicle-miles traveled to capture their interdependencies. The study findings aim to inform policy and design strategies for autonomous vehicle deployment by linking safety perceptions with current travel behavior.

​Posted on Jul 15, 2025

Summer Transportation Camp Highlights

​With support from the Safety21 National University Transportation Center (USDOT) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the H-SMART Lab hosted Summer Camp activities that immersed high school students in safe and intelligent transportation. Participants explored our driving simulator and presented their own projects, building hands-on skills and curiosity for next-generation mobility careers. Read more here.

​Posted on Jun 25, 2025

Our research project was featured in the TRB Weekly Newsletter “Research Roundup.”

​Our Safety21 UTC research project was featured in the TRB Weekly Newsletter ‘Research Roundup.’  The highlight was the project “On the Role of Perceived Safety Concerns on Public Acceptance Behavior of Autonomous Vehicles.”

​Posted on Oct 4, 2024

H-SMART Lab receives funding from National Science Foundation on Trustworthy AI.

Grant title: Trustworthy AI for Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems 

​We are excited to kick off this NSF-funded project with our collaborators from UPenn and UC Riverside. Together, we will develop novel and comprehensive trustworthy AI tools providing the umbrella addressing technical (specifically, AI safety and AI security) and social (specifically, AI fairness) trust issues arising in AI systems embedded in transportation cyber-physical systems.

​Posted on September 1, 2024

UTC Safety21 Executive Director Karen Lightman Visits H-SMART Lab.

We were thrilled to have Karen Lightman, Executive Director of University Transportation Center Safety21, meeting with our research team. Read more here.

​Posted on June 14, 2024

UTRGV Hosts Community of Practice.

NSF CREST Center and UTC Safety21 hosted Community of Practice summer camp, which connects UTRGV faculty and student researchers with STEM teachers to help teachers develop K-12 curriculum relevant to STEM research areas. Read more here.

​Posted on Jun 14, 2024

Teresa Garza & Mario Camarena are selected for the NSF REU program at UCR.

Congratulations! Teresa & Mario are selected for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supported by NSF CREST MECIS, UTRGV, in Summer 2024.

​Posted on May 20, 2024

Leonel Ramirez wins Outstanding Student Award!

The award is supported by the Department of Civil Engineering, UTRGV.

​Posted on Sep 29, 2023

New publication in Transportation Research Record

Our publication on “Electric Vehicle Adoption Behavior and Vehicle Transaction Decision: Estimating an Integrated Choice Model with Latent Variables on a Retrospective Vehicle Survey” presents an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model that jointly estimates households’ vehicle transaction decisions and fuel-type choices using a retrospective vehicle survey—offering insights to guide EV policy and incentive design.  

​Posted on Aug 10, 2023

Fatemeh Nazari receives Faculty Excellence Award!

Fatemeh Nazari receives 2022-2023 UTRGV Faculty Excellence Award in the category of Emerging Scholar. The Emerging Scholar Award recognizes and rewards tenure-track faculty for their contributions and demonstrated excellence in research or creative works.

​Posted on Jun 1, 2023

New publication in Transport Policy

Our publication on proposes “Modeling Vehicle-Miles of Travel Accounting for Latent Heterogeneity” proposes a novel modeling of household VMT using a latent-class framework to capture observed and unobserved heterogeneity, yielding policy insights for targeted VMT-reduction strategies (e.g., fuel costs, telework). 

​Posted on Apr 2, 2023

H-SMART lab is funded by U.S. Department of Transportation through a $20M National University Transportation Center titled “Safety21.”

​This center is led by Carnegie Mellon University. More details can be found here and here.

The center website: https://safety21.cmu.edu

​Posted on February 24, 2023

Fatemeh Nazari receives education award.

Fatemeh receives education award from UTRGV College of Engineering and Computer Science for developing a new college-level graduate course on "Introduction to Data Science."

​Posted on September 10, 2022

Fatemeh Nazari receives Seed Research Grant.

Fatemeh receives Seed Research Grant supported by UTRGV for her research on “decision making behavior in autonomous mobility.”

​Posted on May 20, 2022

Leonel Ramirez is selected for the NSF REU program at UCR.

Congratulations! Leonel Ramirez is selected for Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supported by NSF CREST MECIS, UTRGV. Leonel joins UC Riverside during Summer 2022 to research on “tensor methods in computer vision and deep learning.”

​Posted on May 20, 2022

Fatemeh Nazari (co-PI) receives a grant from National Science Foundation.

Grant title: CREST - Center for Multidisciplinary Research Excellence in Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Systems (MECIS) 

​This $5M NSF Center is focused on cyber-physical systems with the aim of pushing the frontiers of knowledge in future transportation infrastructure, which will be transformed by the advent of mobility technologies, notably autonomous vehicles (AVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Aligned in three tracks of autonomy, sensing, and artificial intelligence, this center will generate new knowledge in the theoretical, computational, experimental, and empirical domains. This center is led by UTRGV in partnership with UIUC, UIC, and UC Riverside.

​Posted on September 10, 2021

Yellitza Soto and Andrea Campos Sanchez win the second place in the Poster Competition & Project Showcase for Engineers Week 2021!

The award is supported by the College of Engineering & Computer Science at UTRGV.

​Posted on March 1, 2021

Yellitza receives Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship!

This fellowship is supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation for the academic year 2020-2021.

​Posted on November 10, 2020

Yellitza Soto receives 2020-2021 WTS Graduate Scholarship!

This scholarship is supported by Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS)-San Antonio Region.

​Posted on May 10, 2020

Appointment: TRB Standing Committee on Travel Behavior and Values

Dr. Nazari has been invited to serve on the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board (TRB) Standing Committee on Travel Behavior and Values.

​Posted on Apr 10, 2020

H-SMART Lab launches at UTRGV!

We focus on advancing human-centered smart mobility and resilient transportation.

​Posted on Sep 10, 2019