Qin Chen
Qin Chen received the B.S degree in transportation engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai, China in 2008. She is currently pursuing the PhD degree in civil and material engineering and serves as Research Assistant in Urban Transportation Center, UIC.
Qin works with Dr. Jane Lin on freight transportation and city logistics. Her research is particularly focus on urban cooperative delivery—-a last mile solution for sustainable and efficiency logistics system. By establishing cooperation among the supplier, carrier and customer, the urban cooperative delivery can better utilize the resource and significantly alleviate the urban congestion and environmental problem with the co-benefit of reducing the logistics costs. The social benefits include the reduction of number of trucks and vehicle mile travel (VMT), less emission and noise, as well as pedestrian safety.
Andrea Hicks
Andrea Hicks is a Graduate Research Assistant at IESP (Institute of Environmental Science and Policy) and a graduate student pursuing a PhD in the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering. She received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Michigan Technological University. Her M.S. in Environmental Engineering is from Clemson University focusing on sustainable systems with research in modeling greenhouse gas emissions from conventional wastewater treatment. Prior to beginning her time at UIC, she worked as an ORISE Research Associate through Oak Ridge National Labs at Region 5 EPA Superfund Division.
Andrea’s research advisor is Dr. Thomas Theis. Her research interests focus on utilizing environmental systems analysis to reduce anthropogenic impacts on the natural world. Andrea’s research focuses on lighting as a consumer application of nanomaterials. Particularly on how nano-enabled lighting technology will change how humans consume light and the impacts of the consumption of light. Andrea’s career goal is to utilize environmental systems analysis in the academic or governmental setting to minimize impacts on the natural world.