Dr. Xilei Zhao is an assistant professor in Transportation Engineering at the University of Florida, where she leads the Smart, Equitable, Resilient Mobility Systems (SERMOS) Lab. She received a Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and a Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. Zhao’s work focuses on developing and applying data and computational science methods to tackle challenging problems in transportation and resilience. Her work has been published in leading transportation and resilience journals, e.g., Transportation Research Part A, C & D and Safety Science. She received the Travel Behaviour and Society Outstanding Paper Award 2020 and the Early-Career Research Fellowship of NASEM’s Gulf Research Program. Her research has been supported by multiple funding agencies such as the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Zhao serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Big Data Analytics in Transportation.

I am always looking for talented and energetic students to join my research group! To express your interest in joining the group as a student researcher, please email your complete CV and a short cover letter (up to one page) to me.

Primary Research Area

Transportation Engineering

Research Interests

Data Science, Transportation and Resilience

Education

B.E., Civil Engineering, 2013, Southeast University
MSE, Applied Maths and Statistics, 2017, Johns Hopkins University
Ph.D., Civil Engineering, 2017, Johns Hopkins University