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Hoehn Room 311
(205) 934-9912

Research and Teaching Interests: Traffic engineering, intelligent transportation systems, congestion management, traffic operations and safety, simulation and modeling, and sustainable transportation

Office Hours: 7:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago

Dr. Virginia P. Sisiopiku is a Professor specializing in transportation engineering. She is the founding director of the UAB TREND Lab and has 25+ years of professional experience in the transportation field as an academic and a consulting transportation engineer.

Sisiopiku studies transportation-related challenges such as congestion management, traffic safety, and performance monitoring and proposes effective strategies to address them. She utilizes traffic flow theories, simulation tools, and transportation data analytics to analyze the performance of transportation systems under present and alternative configurations. She also studies the role of new and emerging technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles in transportation operations and users behaviors. Her research provides transportation solutions that improve the transportation system operational efficiency and safety, support livability and sustainability goals, and have a direct positive impact on people’s everyday lives.

As of 2023, Sisiopiku’s research work produced over 235 refereed books, chapters, journal articles, and peer reviewed conference papers and resulted in seven technical paper awards. For her contributions to the transportation engineering field she has been recognized by many professional organizations including the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Illinois Association of Highway Engineers, IEEE, and the Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS).

In addition to research and scholarship, Sisiopiku is dedicated to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in transportation, advising graduate students, and mentoring postdoc fellows and junior faculty members. To date, she served as faculty adviser of 77 Master’s and Doctoral students in Transportation and mentored four postdoctoral researchers and visiting scholars. For her outstanding mentoring and teaching record, she received the 2010 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentorship and the 2007 the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

In her tenure at UAB, Sisiopiku has served on numerous university-level committees, including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), UAB ADVANCE Board, UAB Sustainability Committee, and the UAB Transportation Task Force. She currently chairs the UAB AAUW Relations Committee and serves as faculty advisor to the UAB Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and the UAB ITE Student Chapter, which she founded in 2002. She also serves in numerous School of Engineering (SoE) committees including the SoE Faculty Executive Committee and the SoE Strategic Planning and New Business Development Committee and is a former chair of the SoE Academic Affairs Committee, the former Equity and Diversity Committee, and the Dupuis Executive Committee.

In 2014 she was inducted as Fellow of the ITE and in 2018 she was named the Engineering Council’s of Birmingham Engineering Educator of the Year.