Keynote Speaker

Evan Howard

Evan Howard is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He attended school in the Baltimore City school system, graduating from the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He has received both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Civil Engineering from Morgan State University.

Currently, he serves as the first director of the newly established Office of Asset Management and Support Services within the Maryland Transportation Authority. In this role, he is leading the charge to engage Asset Management practices and advance asset management across the Authority. He has over 14 years of professional engineering experience in the public sector, working for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PENNDOT), the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDSHA), and the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA). His professional experience includes providing (1) Construction Management Inspection services (2) Pavement and Geotechnical design recommendations for Highway and Bridge projects, (3) serving as the technical lead for Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) Quality Assurance Program for Federally Funded Construction Projects and (4) Asset Management lead technical expert.

Howard lives in Owings Mills, Maryland, with his wife and two kids.

Lili Du

Dr. Lili Du joined the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration in January 2025. She is a principal research engineer and Lead AI Program Manager, responsible for developing, leading, managing the AI Enhanced Safety and Efficiency Program and projects, supporting the Office of Safety and Operation Research and Development at Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center-FHWA. Before that, she was an associate professor and professor in the Civil and Coastal Engineering Department at the University of Florida from 2017-25. She also worked as an assistant and associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) from 2012-17, and as a post-doctoral research associate for NEXTRANS at Purdue University from 2008-12. She received her doctorate in decision sciences and engineering systems with a minor in operations research and statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008, a master of science degree in industrial engineering from Tsinghua University in 2003, and a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China in 1998.

Dr. Du's research is characterized by integrating operations research, network modeling, game theory, control theory, AI, and statistical methods into traffic flow analysis, transportation system analysis, urban planning, and network modeling. Her current research mainly focuses on the impacts of connected and/or autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, mobility on demand, smart curb, network resilience, and traffic flow analysis. Dr. Du's research has been published hundreds of publications in Transportation Research Part B, Part C, and Part D, IEEE Transactions on ITS, Networks, and Spatial Economics, and prestigious conferences. She also delivered hundreds of invited talks and lectures in national and international seminars, workshops, symposiums, and conferences. Her research has been funded by NSF, State DOTs, STRIDE UTC, FMRI UTC, and Toyota InfoTechnology Center. Dr. Du was awarded as an NRC renowned Research Associate at the Federal Highway Administration-Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center from 2023-2024. She was a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2016. Her project, "Driverless City" won the First Nayar Prize at IIT. She is the founding and active chair of both TRB AEP40-4 subcommittee on Emerging Technologies in Network Modeling and ASCE-T&DI Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Committee. She serves as an editor for Transportation Research Part B: Methodological and an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems.