Student of the Year Award
2016 Recipient
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High-ResHolly Loyd
Lloyd is a December 2016 graduate of Utah State University's master's program in civil engineering. Lloyd's master's project involved the analysis of the safety effectiveness of the diverging diamond interchanges in Utah. Her advisor was MPC researcher Ziqi Song and her work was part of the Mountain-Plains Consortium project titled "A Comprehensive Safety Assessment Methodology for Innovative Geometric Designs."
Lloyd grew up in Roy, Utah, and attended Weber State University where she earned her bachelor's degree in business administration with an emphasis in supply chain management. After working in the private sector, she decided to continue her education and pursue a master's degree in civil engineering with an emphasis on transportation.
The diverging diamond interchange is a possible solution to problematic interchange locations because it can accommodate higher and unbalanced traffic flows. The analysis results demonstrated statistically significant decreases in crashes at most of the locations studied. This analysis can be used by government agencies and other transportation engineering professionals considering the implementation of diverging diamond interchanges.
Lloyd also won the ITE Intermountain Section Student Paper competition and presented her research at the ITE Intermountain Section annual conference.