Ph.D. Student Olin Green Receives El Instituto Predoctoral Fellowship to Study Transportation Safety Inequity

Graphic with a dark blue background featuring the headline: “Ph.D. Student Olin Green Receives El Instituto Predoctoral Fellowship to Study Transportation Safety Inequity.” Below the headline is a white box containing the text: “Green’s research examines how geographic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors contribute to disparities in transportation safety.” On the right side of this white section is a portrait of Olin Green, a young man with short brown hair, wearing a purple and white checkered button-down shirt. At the bottom is the UConn College of Engineering logo, with the text “School of Civil and Environmental Engineering” underneath.

Olin Green, a doctoral candidate in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Connecticut, has been awarded the 2024–2025 El Instituto Predoctoral Fellowship with support from the Elizabeth Mahan Fund. This competitive award supports full-time pre-doctoral students conducting interdisciplinary research related to Latinx and Latin American communities.

Green’s project, The Hidden Dimensions of Road Safety: Exploring Socioeconomic and Built Environment Factors in Latin American and Minority Communities, examines how environmental and behavioral factors contribute to transportation safety disparities in underserved areas. His work addresses the disproportionate risks of injury and fatality faced by Latino and African American populations on U.S. roadways.

"Transportation safety inequity describes the unequal impact of traffic-related injuries and fatalities on certain populations, and this effect is especially evident in underserved areas where people are exposed a variety of different social, environmental, economic, and transportation-related disparities," Green explains.

To investigate these disparities, Green is analyzing naturalistic driving data from the SHRP2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS), in combination with census tract-level demographic and socioeconomic data. His analysis focuses on neighborhoods in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties in Florida, selected for their diversity in infrastructure and population composition.

"My research focuses on the driver-related factors that contribute toward the disproportionate rates of injuries and fatalities in Latino and other minority communities," Green shared. "Specifically, I want to determine whether a driver’s behavior changes when traveling in different types of areas, or when traveling in areas with characteristics that are different than the driver’s place of residence."

The fellowship will support Green’s summer research and data analysis, with the goal of publishing findings in an academic journal and contributing a UConn Today article later this year. Although the study is based in Florida, its implications are far-reaching—including for cities like Hartford, Connecticut, where more than 40% of residents identify as Latino.

Green is advised by Professors Davis Chacon-Hurtado and John Ivan and recently received additional research support from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.