Prospective Ph.D. Students
in Rail Transportation Engineering

01Position Description

The Department of Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies at Morgan State University is recruiting funded Ph.D. students in Rail Transportation Engineering. The research focuses on rail infrastructure, with particular emphasis on track, bridges, and rail transit applications. Projects integrate sensing data, engineering knowledge, and computational methods to support safer, more reliable, and more efficient infrastructure management. Depending on students' backgrounds and dissertation topics, work may include methodological development, computational modeling, and application-oriented studies.

02Research Directions

Possible research directions include:

• Digital twin for railroad and rail transit infrastructure
• Infrastructure monitoring, condition assessment, and predictive maintenance
• Sensing and data-driven modeling for infrastructure performance evaluation
• UAS-based inspection and computer vision for rail transit infrastructure
• Distributed acoustic sensing and fiber-optic sensing for track condition assessment
• Modeling, monitoring, and structural assessment for railroad bridges

03Qualifications

Applicants should have a strong academic background in civil engineering, transportation engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, or a closely related field.

Experience in one or more of the following areas is preferred:

• Programming in Python, MATLAB, or related tools
• Finite element modeling or computational analysis
• Data analysis, signal processing, or machine learning
• Experimental, sensing, or field data analysis

Applicants should also be willing to work independently, communicate clearly, and contribute to publications, conference presentations, and related research activities.