Over a hundred students will convene at the University of California Transportation Center and University of California Center on Economic Competitiveness (UCCONNECT) Student Conference in Santa Barbara Feb. 27- March 1, 2015. The preliminary registration numbers show that the conference is bringing in a total of 108 UCCONNECT students from UC Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara, and affiliate Cal Poly Pomona, in addition to eight non-affiliated students.

As the only yearly transportation conference organized by students in United States, the three-day event will feature a variety of podium and poster presentations, lectures, and opportunities to network with other students, in addition to leaders and professionals in the field of transportation.

This year’s keynote speakers are CalTrans’ Chief of Staff, Katie Benouar, and CalTrans Manager Coco Briseno. They will present Feb 28 during the morning session at 9:20.

One of the highlights will be the GeoTrans Technical Workshop 2015 on Feb. 27, sponsored by the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies Multicampus Research Program and Initiative on Sustainable Transport: Technology, Mobility and Infrastructure. “Pattern Recognition and Anomaly Detection for Modeling and Simulation in Sustainable Transportation” will discuss sustainability policies, such as changes in land use to motivate decrease in travel, and how market introduction of new technologies, such as hybrid electric cars or new fuels, have expanded the scope of travel behavior modeling to span numerous scientific fields. The workshop will begin immediately before the opening reception on Friday.

In addition, this year's Mel Webber Memorial Lecture speaker is Professor Hani Mahmassani. He will present Feb. 28 during the dinner event at 6:30 p.m. Professor Mahmassani has published extensively in many areas of transportation research and is currently the William A. Patterson Distinguished Chair in Transportation at Northwestern University and the Director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center.

For the complete schedule and more information: ucconnect2015.weebly.com.