Three graduate students awarded U.S. Department of Transportation fellowships

Grace Albright, Austin Svancara and Gabriela Sherrod, graduate research assistants in the UAB Translational Research for Injury Prevention Lab, have been awarded a 2020-2021 Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Research fellowship.

eisenhower.4Grace Albright, Austin Svancara and Gabriela SherrodThree University of Alabama at Birmingham students have been awarded a 2020-2021 Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Research fellowship by the United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.

Grace Albright, Austin Svancara and Gabriela Sherrod are doctoral students in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology. All three are graduate research assistants in the UAB Translational Research for Injury Prevention Lab.

Sherrod is a graduate student in UAB’s medical/clinical psychology program. Albright and Svancara, both of whom were awarded Eisenhower fellowships for the 2019-2020 academic year, are studying developmental psychology.

“The Eisenhower fellowship program provided funding that assisted in the completion of our research project,” Svancara said. “It also gave us the opportunity to travel to the largest international conference on transportation, where we were able to present our research project, see exciting developments in transportation research and network with other experts in the field.”

Receiving the fellowship again was exciting for Albright as it will assist her with completing her current research project.

“I decided to apply for this fellowship again because it was an amazing experience last year,” she said. “This year, it will support the continuation of my current work, examining the impact of new advanced driver technologies, which I am on track to complete within the next year.”

The fellowship program is awarded to graduate or doctoral students pursuing degrees in transportation-related disciplines. The program works to advance the transportation workforce by encouraging future transportation professionals to seek advanced degrees and help retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.