Updates
Selected news and highlights featuring Professor Yinhai Wang’s research, awards, professional activities, student achievements, media coverage, and technology-transfer impact.
ASCE's Civil Engineering Source highlights the AI Roadmap for Applications in Civil Engineering (AI RACE), an initiative to help position the civil engineering profession for effective and responsible use of artificial intelligence. The article features perspectives from Yinhai Wang, chair of the AI RACE advisory committee.
The News Tribune examines why the I-5 Fife curve between Federal Way and Tacoma is especially vulnerable to congestion. Yinhai Wang explains how heavy traffic volumes, frequent merging and weaving, and significant roadway geometry changes combine to create recurring traffic backups.
US Ignite, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), and the Southwest Business Improvement District selected AIWaysion, a spinoff company of Dr. Wang's lab, as the winner of the Autonomous Vehicle Observation (AVO) Zone Challenge in Washington, DC. In partnership with Parsons Corporation, AIWaysion will deploy its Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic (MUST) to independently observe and analyze autonomous vehicle operations in complex urban traffic.
The project will use edge AI, computer vision, and roadside sensing to track autonomous vehicles, generate high-resolution trajectory data, and analyze how they interact with pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, and motorists.
KUOW examines how major lane closures on Seattle's I-5 Ship Canal Bridge will affect travel throughout the region. Yinhai Wang explains that freeway disruptions can spill over onto arterial streets and affect the entire transportation network, and discusses how travelers may adapt through alternate routes, transit, remote work, and flexible travel schedules.
The ITE Western District recognized Yinhai Wang with its 2026 Outstanding Transportation Educator Award. The award honors educators for outstanding contributions to transportation education, including excellence and creativity in teaching, inspiring student interest in the transportation profession, supporting student development, and service to ITE.
The IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society named Yinhai Wang the 2025 recipient of the IEEE ITS Outstanding Research Award. The award recognizes his contributions to transportation data science, traffic sensing, edge computing, and the advancement of artificial intelligence methods and technologies for smart transportation systems.
The University of Washington highlights how the Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic (MUST), developed by the UW STAR Lab, is helping the Yakama Nation improve safety along Highway 97. The article describes how the system uses edge computing, machine learning, and multiple sensors to monitor traffic, weather, roadway conditions, crashes, and near misses in real time.
The story also features Yinhai Wang's work in developing the technology and advancing its use in practice through partnerships with PacTrans, the Yakama Nation, and AIWaysion.