Rate My Professor Yao-Jan Wu

Yao-Jan Wu is a Professor of Transportation Engineering in the Civil and Architectural Engineering and Mechanics Department at The University of Arizona. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Transportation Engineering) from the University of Washington, an M.S. in Transportation Engineering from National Taiwan University, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from National Central University. Wu joined the University of Arizona in 2013 as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 2019, and to full professor in 2024. Previously, he was at Saint Louis University from 2011 to 2013 and at the University of Virginia in 2011. A licensed Professional Engineer in Arizona and Missouri, he has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than 50 national and international research projects, securing over $20 million in funding.

Wu founded and directs the Center for Applied Transportation Sciences (CATS) and the Arizona Transportation Institute (AZTI), partnering with the Arizona Department of Transportation, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University to tackle transportation challenges and workforce development. His research interests encompass intelligent transportation systems including advanced traffic detection and computer vision; data-driven analysis and optimization of large-scale transportation systems using big data for freeway and arterial operations and traveler behavior; traffic safety modeling; and sustainable transportation planning for transit, pedestrians, bikes, and climate change. He has authored or co-authored over 180 refereed publications, more than 80 journal articles, including recent works such as "Machine-learning approach for estimating passenger car equivalent factors using crowdsourced data" (2026, Transportmetrica A: Transport Science), "Data-driven transfer learning framework for estimating on-ramp and off-ramp traffic flows" (2025, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems), "Bayesian Deep Learning Approach for Real-Time Lane-Based Arrival Curve Reconstruction" (2025, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems), and chapters like "Freeway to Arterial Interfaces" (2021). Wu has presented at over 100 conferences and holds editorial roles as associate editor of Transportation Research Record and editorial board member of Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems. His awards include the LeadershipITE Fellow (2017), Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing for Transportation Research Part C (2018), and 2013-14 Professor of the Year from the department.