Ekin Uğurel

Ekin Uğurel

Postdoctoral Associate @ NYU Tandon, Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP)

About Me

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at New York University, affiliated with NYU Tandon and the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP). I earned my PhD in Transportation Engineering from the University of Washington in December 2025, where I was lucky to be co-advised by Cynthia Chen and Shuai Huang. My doctoral work was partially supported by the College of Engineering Dean’s Fellowship and the Valle Fellowship, which enabled me to spend time as a Visiting PhD student at the Technical University of Denmark, hosted by Filipe Rodrigues. Prior to UW, I received my bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, where I conducted research with Christian Claudel, supported by several merit-based scholarships.

My research focuses on developing machine learning frameworks to model human and organizational decision-making within complex transportation and urban systems. I leverage probabilistic modeling, kernel methods, and representation learning to extract insights from high-dimensional data, with a emphasis on uncertainty quantification, bias mitigation, and interpretability. My work bridges the gap between theoretical ML and practical challenges in long-range transportation planning, travel behavior, and supply chain logistics.

You can reach me at the following email (CV available upon request).

Email: ekin.ugurel@nyu.edu

News

  • 2026 - Started a new position as a Postdoctoral Associate at New York University (NYU), working with Professor Takahiro Yabe and affliated with the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).
  • 2025 - New journal publication out! “From biases to opportunities: leveraging Location-Based-Service (LBS) data for next-generation transportation planning” in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies [pdf]
  • 2025 - New journal publication out! “COVID & telecommuting-induced changes in individual activity and travel patterns: Evidence from the Puget Sound Region” in Transport Policy [pdf]
  • 2025 - Started a visiting Ph.D. role with the Machine Learning for Smart Mobility group at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), supervised by Professor Filipe Rodrigues.
  • 2025 - I hosted an interactive tutorial on human mobility analysis using passively-generated mobile data. Thanks C2SMART for the opportunity! [recording] [slides] [code]
  • 2025 - New journal publication out! “A Framework for Measuring and Benchmarking Fairness of Generative Crowd-Flow Models” in the ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies [pdf] [code]
  • 2025 - New journal publication out! “Beat the Morning Rush: Survival Analysis-Informed DNNs with Collaborative Filtering to Predict Departure Times” in the IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems [pdf]
  • 2025 - New journal publication out! “Exploring biases in travel behavior patterns in big passively-generated mobile data from 11 U.S. cities” in the Journal of Transport Geography [pdf]
  • 2024 - Granted the Michael Kyte Region 10 Outstanding Student of the Year Award from PacTrans.
  • 2024 - New journal publication out! “Metropolitan Planning Organizations’ Uses of and Needs for Big Data” in Transport Findings. [pdf]
  • 2024 - New journal publication out! “Learning to generate synthetic human mobility data: A physics-regularized Gaussian process approach based on multiple kernel learning” in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. [pdf] [code]
  • 2024 - Served as a co-project lead on a Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) project @ the eScience Institute. [website]
  • 2024 - Joined Instacart as an Machine Learning (ML) PhD summer intern.
  • 2024 - Invited podium presentation at the 25th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT 25). [code]
  • 2024 - New journal publication out! “Correcting Missingness in Passively-Generated Mobile Data with Multi-Task Gaussian Processes” in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. [pdf] [code]
  • 2024 - New preprint out! “Event detection from novel data sources: Leveraging satellite imagery alongside GPS traces”. [pdf][code]
  • 2024 - Invited workshop host at the 2024 Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) on MPO uses of and needs for big data.
  • 2024 - Invited talk at the 2024 Annual INFORMS Conference in Seattle, WA on Behavioral-informed Analytics and Decision-making for Urban Transportation Systems.
  • 2023 - Invited talk at the 2023 Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA).
  • 2023 - Invited submission for ISTTT 25.
  • 2023 - Invited talk at the 2023 Annual INFORMS Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on Large-scale Data Analytics for Transportation Systems.
  • 2022 - Started summer internship as a Consulting Intern at Fehr & Peers in Seattle, WA.
  • 2022 - Invited talk at the 2023 Annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) Conference in Washington, DC on Correcting Missingness in Passively-generated Mobile data with Multi-task Gaussian Processes.
  • 2021 - Joined the THINK lab at the University of Washington-Seattle.
  • 2021 - Graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering Honors and a Minor in Business Foundations from the University of Texas at Austin.
  • 2021 - Awarded a College of Engineering Dean’s Fellowship from the University of Washington.