Awad Abdelhalim is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the MIT Urban Mobility and Transit Labs. He earned a B.Sc. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, before joining Virginia Tech where he received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, alongside a graduate certification in Urban Computing. Dr. Abdelhalim's research interests span multiple aspects of urban mobility and intelligent transportation systems, including traffic simulation and driver behavior modeling, transit planning and performance, transportation analytics, and applied machine learning. His doctoral dissertation focused on the development of computationally efficient algorithms and frameworks at the nexus of computer vision, traffic flow theory, and micro-simulation modeling that enable real-time trajectory-based traffic safety and performance assessments at urban intersections, allowing practitioners to proactively evaluate and address concerns. He has taught multiple courses at Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, was a member of the university's self-driving car team working on machine perception systems, and has industry experience working in the transportation consulting private sector and with the Washington D.C Department of Transportation (DDOT).