2026 Data Competition for an Efficient Transportation Design
This Spring, the 2026 Data Competition for an Efficient Transportation Design was held at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, bringing together students to develop data-driven solutions to improve transportation safety in rural communities.
The competition was organized by the Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities (CR2C2) and made possible through the contribution of Honda, and was led at UTK by Oriana Calderon and Airton Kohls.
Throughout the competition, students worked with real-world crash and seat belt data to identify safety challenges and propose practical, data-driven strategies to reduce injuries and fatalities across rural Tennessee.
Congratulations to the winning teams:
🥇 First Place: Xinyu Hu, Mohammad Khojastepur, Zeinab Bayati
🥈 Second Place: Xudong Wang, Madelaine Martinez-Ferguson, Aliza Sharmin, Jose Tupayachi
🥉 Third Place: Riley West, Manuela Córdoba-Misas, Isaiah Rajnoor, David Bushayija
Allison Rewalt, Fred Nshayija, Ryan Beard, Nishant Pokharel, and Nathaniel Sheets are also recognized for their hard work and dedication throughout the competition.
A special thank you to the judges for their time and expertise:
Christopher Osbourn, Matthew Cate, and Airton Kohls
The first-place team will represent UTK at the upcoming multi-university Southeast competition on April 14!