University of Washington
Thomas & Marilyn Nielsen Endowed Professor in Engineering
Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering (CEE)
Adjunct Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE)
Director of Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans)
Director of Northwestern Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NW TTAP) Center
Director of Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)
Director of Smart Transportation Applications & Research Laboratory (STAR Lab)
President of AIWaysion, Inc. (AIWaysion)
Improving mobility and transportation safety through artificial intelligence, edge computing, sensing, data analytics, and smart infrastructure technologies.
About
Dr. Yinhai Wang is a professor in transportation engineering and the founding director of the Smart Transportation Applications and Research Laboratory (STAR Lab) at the University of Washington (UW). He has served as director for Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium (PacTrans), USDOT University Transportation Center for Federal Region 10, since 2012, director for the Northwestern Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NW TTAP) Center since 2022, and director for the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) since 2024. He is currently the Connected and Automated Transportation Special Section Editor for ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems and interim founding editor-in-chief for the IEEE Transactions on AI in Transportation journal. He was the 2026 president of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), 2025 chair of the Center for Technical Advancement (CTA) at American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2018-2019 president of ASCE Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI), chair of the AI and Advanced Computing Applications Committee (AED50) at Transportation Research Board (TRB) from 2021 to 2025, founding co-chair of the ASCE Connected and Automated Vehicle Impact Committee (2017-2022), an elected governor for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS) (2011-2013), and a member of the IEEE Smart Cities Steering Committee (2013-2018).
His active research fields include traffic sensing, AI methods and applications, transportation data science, edge computing, transportation safety, traffic operations and simulation, smart urban mobility, etc. He received the 2025 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Outstanding Research Award, 2023 ASCE Francis C. Turner award, and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Innovation in Education Award for 2018. His research work has also been recognized by numerous paper awards, such as the 2022 Outstanding Paper Award from the IEEE International Conference on Digital Twins and Parallel Intelligence, IEEE International Smart Cities Conference’s Best Paper Award for 2020, and ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Best Paper Award for 2003. He is a professional engineer registered in Washington, a member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, a Distinguished Member of ASCE, and a fellow of both IEEE and ITE.
Focus areas
Research themes, major projects, centers, and selected highlights.
Teaching, student mentoring, workforce development, short courses, and training.
Deployment, implementation, technical assistance, partnerships, and tools.
Leadership roles, committees, editorial activities, conferences, and service.
Latest
ASCE's Civil Engineering Source highlights the AI Roadmap for Applications in Civil Engineering (AI RACE) and features perspectives from Yinhai Wang, chair of the AI RACE advisory committee.
Read more →The News Tribune examines recurring congestion along the I-5 Fife curve, featuring Yinhai Wang's explanation of how traffic volume, merging and weaving, and roadway geometry contribute to the bottleneck.
Read more →STAR Lab's spinoff company, AIWaysion was selected as the winner of the Washington, DC Autonomous Vehicle Observation Zone Challenge. In partnership with Parsons, AIWaysion will deploy its MUST edge-AI sensing technology to independently observe and analyze autonomous vehicle operations in complex urban traffic.
Read more →