TURF Applications are now closed for 2022. Want to stay updated on the TURF program? Fill out this interest form if you would like to be notified when TURF applications open in the future.

Eligibility

Students must be currently enrolled in a civil engineering, urban studies and planning, or transportation-related undergraduate degree program at any college or university. Preference will be given to applicants who have a strong interest in transportation and graduate education. Due to funding restrictions, international students are not eligible to apply. 

Selected students will receive a $7,500 stipend and are expected to work 40 hours per week for eight weeks. Students are responsible for finding and funding their own lodging during their stay in Portland.

Transportation Research

The TURF fellows are given adjacent workspaces within TREC's offices so that they can get acquainted with each other, and with the rest of TREC's staff, even though they may be working on different projects. TURF projects cover a wide variety of topics, depending on what current projects PSU faculty are working on and what students' interests are.

Examples of past TURF projects:

• Studying multimodal trip generation (including ride hailing, scooters, bike share, and freight) at multifamily apartments.
• Adding data to BikePed Portal, the national online nonmotorized count archive housed at and maintained by TREC at Portland State University. 
• Collecting data on micromobility, including observation of interactions between pedestrians and e-scooter riders in congested areas in Portland
• Conducting field intercept surveys and collecting video data to determine how pedestrian safety improvements affect pedestrians' quality of service and comfort.
• Assisting with surveys and focus groups for study of the challenges transit riders face when transit agencies move to cashless fare payment systems.

Cohort Activities

We also organize programs to help introduce the group of students to Portland, the university, and the region's transportation community. Group activities have included:

• bike tours of the city,
• ice cream socials, and
• weekly professional development with faculty on topics like data visualization, data analysis, literature review 101, and the basics of survey development.

We also help TURF fellows to explore Portland through our local transportation network of e-bike share, e-scooter share, lightrail, TriMet bus system and more.