Aerial view of a suburban neighborhood with a road under construction cutting through houses and green yards.

TTI’s Chunwu Zhu Receives the 2025 Barclay Gibbs Jones Award for the Best Dissertation in Planning

A man wearing glasses and a suit jacket poses for a professional portrait with a dark, blurred background.
Headshot of Chunwu Zhu.

With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data modeling, Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) Assistant Research Scientist Chunwu Zhu is reshaping how experts think about transportation safety. Zhu has become the first Texas A&M University recipient of the prestigious Barclay Gibbs Jones Award, presented by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

The award honors Zhu’s dissertation, “Urban AI for Safe and Equitable Streets: Evaluating Roadway Safety and Equity Through Artificial Intelligence Approach.” His work reveals that communities with fewer resources face higher crash risks because of limited pedestrian infrastructure, greater vehicle exposure and roadway designs that prioritize motor vehicle flow over safety for all users.

“Transportation safety is not just about engineering solutions, it’s about ensuring that all communities have access to safe roadways,” says Zhu. “My research aims to identify and address the gaps that exist in our transportation system using AI and other advanced technologies.”

Zhu’s research applies tools such as AI-powered satellite and street view imagery analysis, Bayesian statistical modeling, latent class clustering and structural equation modeling to address critical safety challenges. His work was supported through a TTI research assistantship funded by the Safety through Disruption University Transportation Center, the Federal Highway Administration and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

“Chunwu’s research exemplifies how innovative thinking and rigorous methodology can directly improve safety outcomes,” says TTI Research Scientist Bahar Dadashova. “His work demonstrates not only the power of advanced analytics but also the importance of applying those tools to real-world challenges that impact communities every day.”

The Barclay Gibbs Jones Award commemorates the legacy of its namesake, a visionary scholar known for challenging conventional thinking and advancing research in disaster and urban planning. His bold ideas and dedication to mentoring PhD students continue to influence the field. Zhu’s dissertation was selected for its original insights into transportation planning and practical guidance for how planners and governments can make more informed decisions.

Zhu recently completed his PhD in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University under the supervision of Dr. Xinyue Ye while also serving as a graduate research assistant at TTI under Dadashova. He has since joined TTI full time.