CEE Ph.D. Student Tolu Oke Receives Prominent Sisson Fellowship from the CoE
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Tolu (Ogunbekun) Oke, a Ph.D. student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, has received a prestigious Sisson Fellowship from the College of Engineering (CoE). Oke, who conducts research under the guidance of CEE Professor Michael Knodler, is studying pedestrian safety near transit networks. Her previous experience also includes transportation planning, travel-demand modeling, behavioral research, data analytics, and financial and economic evaluation of transportation projects. She will receive a stipend of $40,000 and many other benefits from the Sisson Fellowship. See Oke’s professional page: https://www.odaramobility.com/.
Beyond the one-year academic stipend of $40,000, the Sisson Fellowship includes a tuition credit for one full year, 50-percent exemption of the mandatory Graduate Service Fee (currently $635 per semester), 95-percent exemption of the cost of individual health fee and insurance, and dental, vision, and wellness benefits.
Oke earned her B.S. degree in Physics from Mount Holyoke College in 2009 and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UMass Amherst in 2010. In 2015 she completed an M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her master’s thesis focused on the impact of Amtrak performance in the Northeast Corridor.
Professionally, Oke is the founder and principal at Odara Mobility, LLC, a transportation-consulting firm that leverages data and operational insights to provide strategic advice on transportation systems in global-urban economies. She also supports transportation projects for the World Bank in the Middle East and North Africa regions.
Oke worked as a transportation consultant at the Steer Group in Boston for about a decade, developing analytical tools for various transportation projects. According to Steer, the company is “a global consultancy specializing in the critical services and infrastructure that make our world work.”
In 2019 Oke began working for the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority as the Manager of Transit Planning and Analysis while directing quantitative and qualitative planning studies and securing more than $70 million in federal and state funding for transit research, expanded transit service, and capital projects.
Oke joined the UMass Amherst CEE department as a Ph.D. candidate in January of 2024. Here, her Ph.D. research focuses on pedestrian safety near transit bus stops. As she says, “The research plan entails three primary tasks and is a combination of both quantitative metrics and invaluable field data.”
According to Oke, “The first stage involves a quantitative analysis of historical crashes to identify factors contributing to crashes near transit bus stops. The second stage consists of a survey to gather insight on pedestrians’ perception of safety around transit, and the third stage involves field-data collection to observe pedestrian behavior near transit and analyze how it varies with different environmental and design factors.”
Oke concludes that the goal of her research “is to enhance pedestrian safety by identifying key crash-risk factors and developing targeted countermeasures and policies to address issues faced by pedestrians near transit.”
In addition to the Sisson Fellowship, Oke has received the Woman in Engineering Award for Academic Excellence from UMass Amherst, as well as the Diane Miller Prize in Physics and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Program Award from Mount Holyoke College. Beyond her other abundant skills and accomplishments, she also enjoys running, hiking, and mentoring young women. (November 2024)