The Art and Science of Transportation Research in the AI Era

In today’s rapidly evolving AI-mediated world, the way of conducting scientific research is undergoing significant transformation. The ability to understand fundamental concepts in research design and methodology, while harnessing emerging computational techniques and tools, is crucial for addressing contemporary challenges and advancing knowledge across various fields. This course responds to the need to prepare students to thrive in a rapidly evolving, technology-driven world by integrating computational and data science techniques into their studies. This seminar is a foundational methods course, exploring research design and computational methods that are crucial for scientific inquiry in the era of artificial intelligence. While the emphasis is on transportation, the skills and methodologies are applicable across various domains. This seminar will cover the key concepts in research design and methodology, such as operational definitions, measurements, and generalizability, and expose students to a variety of computational research methods and techniques, such as web scraping, data wrangling in Python and R, SQL, Power BI, Tableau, and version control with git. Learning Outcomes: By the end of the course, students will be able to understand fundamental concepts in research design and methodology, effectively formulate research questions and design studies, and develop proficiency in data science tools and techniques.