University of Utah civil and environmental engineering student Jeffrey Taylor has devoted four years of research for his master’s thesis on determining how motorists react on the nation’s roads, and he hopes one day he can help reduce the number of crashes by better predicting how drivers react.

His thesis, a methodology for estimating how drivers react to the motorists in front of them, was honored Jan. 10 with this year’s Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award at the annual Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) awards banquet in Washington D.C. Each year, CUTC National Student Awards are given out to four graduate students — two for their master’s theses and two for Ph.D. dissertations — for their accomplishments in transportation research and education. Taylor received a $1,500 award along with a plaque.

“It feels nice to be recognized for the hard work that went into it and acknowledging the support that I received from everyone in the university’s [civil and environmental engineering] program,” said Taylor, referencing his faculty advisors, U civil and environmental engineering professors R.J. Porter and Xuesong Zhou.