Potential collaborators
We welcome opportunities to work with colleagues within and outside of OSU. Feel free to email Huyen (le.253@osu.edu) if you have ideas/projects open for collaboration.
What we can offer: Our core area is transportation (especially travel behavior and transport-related environmental health), and we have collaborated with many research teams on complex social issues such as environmental justice, environmental / energy policy, and social determinants of health. Our core methods are spatial and non-spatial statistics, geospatial analysis, and applied machine learning. We often work with large (to very large) longitudinal datasets and primary data collection efforts using sensors and mobile tracking apps.
Graduate students
You can find the details about our PhD/MA programs and admission requirements here (also check other pages on the right menu). At OSU Geography, graduate students are usually fully funded through university fellowships, research and/or teaching assistantship with a competitive stipend and benefits. More funding information can be found here.
Before applying: You are welcome to contact me before applying — between Sep 1 and the application deadline. Your email should include your background, past, current, and future research related to transportation and/or health, how your research overlaps with mine, your quantitative skills, CV, and TOEFL/IELTS score (or exam dates if you haven’t taken the tests). GRE is no longer required. After the initial screening, I might ask for a [working] draft of your research statement. Please do not contact me regarding admission before Sep 1 and after the deadline (unless you want to follow up on your application). If you do not hear from me, it is very likely that you did not demonstrate overlaps in research interests and/or did not follow the instruction above. If you followed everything noted above and still do not hear from me, please send me a reminder.
Application deadlines: Nov 30 for international applicants and Dec 15 for domestic applicants. All graduate programs in our department start in the Fall; there is no admission for the Spring semester.
So, if you want to start your PhD in Fall 2024 (late August), you need to apply by Nov or Dec of the year before (2023).
Undergraduate students (OSU students only)
I occasionally need undergrad RA to assist me with literature review, data collection, data processing, and/or data analysis. If you are interested in urban transportation, health, well-being, and GIS/GPS/data analytics, please contact me for potential opportunities.
Who should apply
Students who share common research interests with me, regardless of their background, are welcome to apply. You don’t need to hold a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Geography, although knowledge in GIS would be desirable. Women and underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.
Undergraduate/Master’s students who have at least one of these skills or are willing to learn these skills will be prioritized:
- Quantitative skills 1: statistics/econometrics and/or machine learning.
- Quantitative skills 2: spatial analysis and/or spatial statistics/econometrics.
- Programming: Preferably in R and/or Python.
- Data wrangling.
- Literature review and synthesis.
Prospective PhD students should have strong quantitative skills and preferably some programming knowledge.