Two CivMin students are among ten University of Toronto graduate students who are receiving DiDi Graduate Awards in recognition of their contributions to the fields of artificial intelligence, vehicle autonomy, transportation analytics, human-machine interfacing and related topics.
They are the first U of T students to receive scholarships from Beijing-based Didi Chuxing, the world’s largest ride-hailing service.
“U of T is very prestigious in cultivating outstanding leaders and innovators,” said Hongtu Zhu, chief scientist of statistics at DiDi. “DiDi hopes to contribute to this endeavor in fostering top talents to solve the world’s transportation, environmental and employment challenges with smart transportation innovations.”
The recipients are:
- PhD students Danijar Hafner and Nicole Barbosa Sultanum, from the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science
- Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering PhD students Alaa Itani (supervisor Professor Amer Shalaby) and Junshi Xu (supervisor Professor Marianne Hatzopoulou) of Civil Engineering; Hao Wang and Bilal Majed Taha of electrical and computer engineering and Dengbo He (supervisor Professor Birsen Donmez) of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
- Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering master’s student Nazli Eser Kaya (supervisor Professor Birsen Donmez) of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
- Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering master’s students Abhishek Goudar and Shangyi Xiong of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies