Prospective Students

I am actively recruiting fully funded PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to help grow the UCLA mobility program with me. If you’d like to learn more about my advising style, you can read my letter to prospective students. To learn more about my recent research interests, I encourage you to watch my talk and read the three papers discussed during the presentation. 

Prospective PhD Students: I recruit new PhD students each year. If you are interested in PhD position, please read and submit this form and email me to confirm your submission. Although I try to reply to every email, I sometimes miss a few. If you believe we are a good fit, please make sure to apply through the official admission website regardless of my reply, and mention my name in your Statement of Purpose. I’ll make sure to thoroughly review all applications. For a Fall 2026 start, the application portal will likely open in September 2025, with a deadline of December 15, 2025. 

Postdoctoral Research Fellow: If you are interested in a postdoc position, please read and submit this form, and email me to confirm your submission.

UCLA Undergraduate: If you’re a UCLA undergraduate passionate about research and considering a PhD, I’d recommend the following path. Reach out to a faculty mentor and get involved in a research project. You can earn course credit during the academic year or receive a stipend through the summer research program. Collaborating with faculty and earning co-authorship on a paper will greatly strengthen your application for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which can give you the freedom to choose the PhD program that best fits your goals. 

I'm looking for undergraduate students interested in developing a Python package at the intersection of optimization, deep learning, and behavioral science. Please email me your CV if you think you would be a good fit.

UCLA Masters Students:  If you are a master’s student in CEE and would like to change your academic advisor, please contact both your current advisor and your prospective advisor to get their approval, and then submit the required form. If you are considering selecting me as your academic advisor, please email me the following information to initiate our conversation: your research interests, your purpose in pursuing the master’s degree, your career goals after completing the program, your course plan for this quarter (and a rough plan for the remaining year), and whether you plan to pursue the thesis track. If you plan to pursue the thesis track, please include a tentative thesis title and a brief description. If you haven’t decided yet and would like to discuss it with me, you may instead provide a few keywords of your research interests in both topic and methodology.

Potential Visitors and Remote Collaborations: If you are not a UCLA student and interested in visiting research positions, please send me an email including your plans for an in-person or remote visit, along with any expected support. I hope we can define a clear research problem, scope, and timeline before the in-person visit.

UCLA CEE offers comprehensive expertise in transportation, with many outstanding faculty members actively recruiting students. Since transportation research is highly interdisciplinary, expertise and interest areas often overlap. Here is a quick guide to help you find the best fit:

If you are interested in system-level decision-making and optimization, I may be the right advisor for you. If your focus is on vehicle-level automation and AI, I recommend looking into the work of Jiaqi Ma and Chen Tang. If you would like to specialize in discrete choice modeling and consider policy implications, check Tierra Bill. For the full list of faculty working at the intersection of transportation and broader fields, please check here. In special cases where co-advising may be beneficial, please feel free to discuss this option with us, but make sure to communicate openly and transparently from the beginning.