Thank you for your interest in my research.

News

• Just launched my podcast, Small Talk with Myself — a space for PhD students and early-career academics. Please check it out here. (1/1/2026)
• Our Discovery project “Shaping net-zero cities with safe and efficient micromobility solutions” led by A/Prof Mehmet Yildirimoglu has been awarded by the Australian Research Council. (30/10/2025)
  
• Thrilled to have been awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, securing nearly $1.3 million to advance the future of automated vehicle (AV) technology and safety. More information can be found from this link. (16/07/2025)
• The online home of our new DP project has been launched, please check it out: https://zuduozheng.github.io/CAV4Eco-Driving/. (28/11/2024)
• Thrilled to receive the positive outcome from the Discovery Scheme of the Australian Research Council about our proposal "Safe and efficient eco-driving using connected and automated vehicles", and grateful to the assessors and College of Experts for their strong support to our proposal at this highly competitive round (success rate is 16.3%).  (4/11/2023)
• Congratulations to Zhiwei Yang on successfully defending her PhD thesis. (5/4/2025)
• Congratulations to Jie Sun on receiving the prestigious Excellent Young Scientists Fund (Overseas) of National Natural Science Foundation of China and Shanghai Outstanding Academic Leaders Plan (Overseas), and on his appointment as a Tenured Associate Professor at Tongji University.
• Congratulations to Anshuman Sharma on securing an Assistant Professor position at IIT (BHU), Varanasi.
• Congratulations to Saeed Mohammadian (my last PhD student at QUT) for receiving  Faculty of Engineering Executive  Dean’s Commendation for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis. (21/04/2023)
• Congratulations to Zhiwei Yang for winning David Willis Memorial Prize at ATRF 2022. (01/10/2022)
• Yasir Ali has moved to  Loughborough University for a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) position. Congratulations and wish him all the best in further developing his career there. (01/09/2022)
• Sadaf Aminmansour has recently completed her PhD thesis;  Congratulations and wish her all the best with the next chapter of her career. (31/08/2022)
• Saeed Mohammadian has recently received his PhD degree;  Congratulations on his successful and fruitful PhD journey. (27/02/2022)
• I'm co-guest editing (with Haneen Farah and Johan Olstam) a special issue on “Deployment of Connected and Automated Vehicles in Mixed Traffic Environment and the Implications on Traffic Safety and Efficiency” for IEEE-T-ITS. For more detail, see https://www.ieee-itss.org/its-transactions-special-issues.
• We were awarded a Discovery Project from the Australian Research Council; and we will start recruiting PhD students (with scholarship) soon. (09/01/2021)
• Our paper won the best paper award (across TRB's Operations Section, for which the first author is under 35 yrs of age) --- the Cunard Award, at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 99th Annual Meeting ; The winning paper is “Estimating and Comparing Response Times in Traditional and Connected Environments”, and can be accessed via this link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0361198119837964?journalCode=trraj.  Congratulations Anshuman! (14/01/2020)
• Congratulations to Jie Sun for receiving the 2019 COTA Best Dissertation Award – Runner-up Award, at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 99th Annual Meeting. (14/01/2020)

PhD scholarships available
Two prerequisites of being considered for a scholarship: Serious of becoming a researcher; and comfortable with statistics, math, and coding.
If you are interested, please contact me by sending emails to: zuduo.zheng at uq dot edu dot au.
To PhD students in China interested in visiting my group with a CSC scholarship: Thank you very much for your interest in my research. Due to the high volume of inquiries, I am unable to respond to most of such emails. My sincere apologies. Please note that I only accept visiting PhD students who have a proven record of conducting high-quality research and are willing to stay in my group for at least 2 years. Thank you for your understanding.

Selected Current Projects:

• From error-prone human driving to error-free superhuman-like self-driving [2026 - 2029]                                                         

             Role: Solo Chief Investigator (Future Fellowship).     
             Sponsor: Australian Research Council.

• Safe and efficient eco-driving using connected and automated vehicles [2024 - 2028]
  

             Role: First-named Chief Investigator.
            Collaborator: A/Prof Jiwon Kim, Prof Michiel Bliemer, Prof     
           Lidia Morawska, Prof Hesham Rakha, Prof Cathy Wu
           Sponsor: Australian Research Council (Discovery Project)

• A real-time traffic signal system for safe and efficient intersections. [2023 - 2025]                                                           

             Role: UQ Lead Chief Investigator.                               
            Collaborator: Prof Md. Mazharul Haque, Dr Andrew
           Burbridge, Prof Dr Alexander Paz, Dr Yasir Ali, A/Prof Ashish
           Bhaskar, Prof Simon Washington                                           
           Sponsor: Australian Research Council  (Linkage Project).

• DynaMix-FM, dynamic mixed reality environment for future mobility. [2022 - 2024]

              Role: UQ Lead Chief Investigator.
             Collaborator: Professor Sebastien Glaser; Dr Bo Du;
             Professor Pascal Perez; Associate Professor Ronald
            Schroeter; Professor Andry Rakotonirainy; Dr Andy Bond;
            Professor Michael Milford; Dr Johan Barthelemy;
            Associate Professor Stephen Palmisano;
            Professor Guy Wallis; Professor Mark Hickman;
            Dr Konstanty Bialkowski; Professor Robin Burgess-Limerick.
             Sponsor: Australian Research Council
            (Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities).

• Unifying Traffic Modelling and Safety Management for Safer and Faster Roads. (Project website) [2021 - 2024]

             Role: First-named Chief Investigator.
             Collaborator: Associate Professor Md. Mazharul Haque;                        Professor Andry Rakotonirainy; Dr Mehmet Yildirimoglu;
             Professor Hans Van Lint.
             Sponsor: Australian Research Council (Discovery Project).
Previous Projects:

• Urban Freight Shifts.

             Role: UQ Lead Chief Investigator.
             Collaborator: Professor Sebastien Glaser; Dr Shams Yasmin; 
             Prof Narelle Haworth; Prof Naveen Eluru
             Sponsor: iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre.

• Desktop driving simulators for strategic research and teaching needs.

             Role: First-named Chief Investigator.
             Collaborators: Professor Mark Hickman; Professor Carlo                      Prato; Dr Jiwon Kim; Dr Mehmet Yildirimoglu.
             Sponsor: The Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and
             Information Technology, University of Queensland.

• Developing a comprehensive simulation platform for traffic mixed with connected and automated vehicles.

             Role: First-named Chief Investigator.
             Collaborator: Dr Tony Jia.
             Sponsor: University of Queensland.

• Modelling mixed traffic flow of manual, connected, and autonomous vehicles.                                                                             Role: Solo Chief Investigator (DECRA Fellowship).      Sponsor: Australian Research Council.
• Automotive Australia 2020 CRC.

             Role: Chief Investigator;
             Sponsor: Department of Innovation Industry, Science and Research, Australian Government.

• Developing a connected vehicular network using desktop driving simulators.

             Role: First-named Chief Investigator.  Collaborators: Professor Edward Chung and Dr. Dhammika Jayalath.
            Sponsor: Queensland University of Technology.

• Understanding the 2011 Flooding’s Impact on the Traffic Flow and Travel Behaviour: A Pilot Study.

             Role: Chief Investigator.
             Sponsor: Queensland University of Technology.

• Who Killed New York City’s Congestion Pricing? An International Comparison Analysis and its Implication to Australia.

            Role: Chief Investigator; 
            Sponsor: The United States Studies Centre at University of Sydney.

• Survey Design, Survey Data Analysis & Modeling.

             Role: Chief Investigator;
            Sponsor: CRC for Rail Innovation: Urban Rail Travel Behaviour Project.

• TravelSmart Workplaces Evaluation.

              Role: Chief Investigator.
             Sponsor: Department of Transport, Queensland Government. (Currently on hold due to the government budget freeze)​

Academic Appointments:

• ARC Future Fellow, Australian Research Council, 2025 – 2029
• Professor, The University of Queensland, Australia, 2024 –
• Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Endowed Chair (Deputy), 2023 - 2025.
• Associate Professor, The University of Queensland, Australia, 2018 – 2023
• Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, 2017
• DECRA Research Fellow, Australian Research Council, 2016 – 2019
• Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, 2014 – 2016
• Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, Australia, 2011 – 2014
• Early Career Academic fellow, Queensland University of Technology, Australia , 2011 – 2012
• Research Associate, the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney,  2012
• Post Doctoral Researcher, Minnesota Traffic Observatory, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, United States,  2010 – 2011
• Graduate Student Research Associate, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Arizona State University, United States, August 2007 – July 2010

Primary Research Interests:

• Traffic flow modeling, simulation, and optimization with a primary focus on emerging mobility technologies (e.g., connected and automated vehicles);

• Travel behaviour, strategic transport planning and modeling, and decision making;

• Traffic safety;

• Advanced data analysis techniques (e.g., mathematical modeling, econometrics, numerical optimization) in transport engineering;
• Research on research (or meta-research).      

Selected Honors and Awards:

• Research Culture Award, The University of Queensland, 2025
  
• ARC Future Fellow, Australian Research Council, 2025 – 2029
• Member, the College of Experts, the Australian Research Council (2024 - present)
• Citation for Excellence in Student Learning (Finalist), The University of Queensland, 2024
• Inaugural Open Research Fellowship, The University of Queensland, 2024
• Short-term Visiting Research Fellowship, The University of Tokyo (host: the Oguchi Lab, Institute of Industrial Science), December 2023 - January 2024
• Citation for Excellence in Student Learning, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland, 2023
• Greenshields Prize, the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), 2023
• David Willis Memorial Prize (Best Paper Award) ,   Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF) 2022.
• Best Paper Award, Statistical Methodology Committee AED60, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), 2022
• Best Paper Award, International Symposium on Accident Analysis and Prevention, 2021
• Awards for Excellence in Higher Degree by Research Supervision - the  Emerging Advisor Award (the only winner university wide), the University of Queensland, 2021
• The Cunard Award,  the Transportation Research Board (TRB), 2020
• The Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Australian Research Council (2016 - 2019)
• Vice-Chanceller Travel Fellowship, Queensland University of Technology (2012)
• Research Fellowship, the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney (2012)
• Early Career Academic Fellowship, Queensland University of Technology (2011)
• Travel Award, University of California, Los Angeles ( Dec. 2011)
• Dwight David Eisenhower Fellowship, the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (2009)
• First prize, the Arizona ITE Paper Scholarship (2010)
• University Graduate Fellowship for Academic Excellence, Arizona State University (07; 09; 2010)

Services:

• Member, the College of Experts, the Australian Research Council (2024 - present)
• Associate Editor, Transportation Research Part C (2025 - present) 
• Program Convenor, Master of Engineering, The Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, UQ (2021 - 2024)
• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2021 - 2024)
• Member, Editorial Board, Analytic Methods in Accident Research (2021 - present)
• Member, Editorial Board, Communications in Transportation Research (2021 - present)
• Member, Editorial Board, Transportation Research Part B (2016 - 2018)
• Member, Editorial Board, Transportation Research Part C (2013 - present )
• Academic Editor, Journal of Advanced Transportation (2020 - 2021)
• Guest Editor, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2021)
• ​Associate Editor, International Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems Research by Springer (2017 - 2019)
• Editor, Heliyon, an open access journal for all disciplines by Elsevier (2015 -  2020)
• Guest Editor, Transportation Research Part C (2015)
• Member, Editorial Board, The Open Transportation Journal (2011 -2016)
• Associate editor, University-Community for Social Action Research Network (01/2008-01/2009)
• Assistant editor, University-Community for Social Action Research Network (09/2007-12/2007)

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