EUGENE, Ore. – (Jan. 6, 2012) –A University of Oregon student won the grand prize in a national competition challenging students to create the best graphic presentation of a transportation policy issue.
Kory Northrop, an environmental studies graduate student will be honored at the 2012 Transportation Research Board’s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., Jan. 22 to Jan. 26. His travel expenses will be paid to attend the conference and present his work, and he was awarded a $2,000 scholarship.
The competition – “Data Visualization Student Challenge” – was designed to encourage students to examine infographics options for helping decision-makers make better-informed policy and investment decisions in support of transportation safety and/or economic development.
Northrop’s project, “Bicycling Commuting Trends in the United States,” is available at http://pages.uoregon.edu/northrop/flash/USDOT.php
“With work like Kory’s, the UO is increasingly seen as one of the premier institutions in the country that focuses on active, sustainable forms of transportation in research, community service, and in training the next generation of leaders in critical areas of national importance,” said Marc Schlossberg, professor in Planning, Public Policy and Management. “His work also points to the national leadership the UO enjoys in cartography and spatial data visualization, so Kory’s work is also highlighting the cross-disciplinary opportunities on this campus.”
Northrop estimates he devoted “upward of 600 hours” to the project, beginning with work during two courses taught by Schlossberg.
“We focused on bicycle/pedestrian issues in Salem as one of the 28 courses that were part of the Sustainable City Year Program that year and he did an awesome project,” Schlossberg said. “It is thrilling to see Kory continue to fuse learning and doing; he is tremendously gifted and it is exciting to see him committed to doing policy-relevant projects while still a student.”
Northrop hopes to use his graphics and GIS skills “to collaborate with communities and organizations that are working toward creating equitable and sustainable lifestyles,” he said.
Northrop is in his second year as a graduate student at UO. He serves on the board of the Willamette Farm & Food Coalition, is a GIS Technician Intern for the Lane Council of Governments, and a graduate teaching fellow in the Social Science Instructional Labs. He graduated from Tulane University in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
Contact: Marti Gerdes, A&AA communications, 541-346-6094, martig@uoregon.edu
Links:http://aaa.uoregon.edu/, http://dataviz.challenge.gov/
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