{"id":192292,"date":"2010-01-18T00:06:56","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.eng.wayne.edu:\/\/1701ab861c56d6752c9cd895eaa10f2c"},"modified":"2010-01-18T00:06:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T05:06:56","slug":"elibe-elibe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/192292","title":{"rendered":"Elibe Elibe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\n Elibe Elibe is a transportation engineering grad student on a mission. Here he rides the Detroit People Mover as it rolls by the Detroit River.<\/em> (Photo by Alonso Delarte)<\/p>\n

by Derrick Bean
\n COE Public Affairs Writer<\/p>\n

Elibe A. Elibe (pronounced eh-lee-bay) is a graduate student working on his master’s degree in transportation engineering at Wayne State University and the Michigan-Ohio University Transportation Center’s Outstanding Student of the Year.<\/p>\n

“I was very fortunate to even have been considered,” says Elibe. “I’m very fortunate for the opportunity I’ve gotten here at Wayne State. I’ve been telling all my family I didn’t come to Wayne State expecting to have all the fortunes: meeting politicians, working behind the scenes on public projects and learning the importance of cooperation. It’s a great honor. I’m very fortunate.”<\/p>\n

Elibe is the son of Nigerian immigrants. His dad came to America in the early 1970s. Elibe grew up in southeastern Michigan. He says visiting his parents’ hometowns in Nigeria three times and seeing the way of life there helped him put his life here in perspective and make the most of his opportunities.<\/p>\n

His parents were always a source of strength, he says. “The biggest thing they stressed is hard work. It was mostly nonverbal, but they instilled hard work within me. Throughout my entire life, I saw my parents work hard for the survival of me and my younger sister.”<\/p>\n

When Elibe completed his undergraduate studies at Michigan State University he was unsure of his next move. After declining a few job offers, he chose to attend Wayne State based on its research work in transportation currently underway at the College of Engineering.<\/p>\n

Elibe is certain he made the right decision because he has learned so much in so little time, he says. He credits Snehamay Khasnabis, professor of civil engineering, for encouraging and supporting him.<\/p>\n

“I ask a lot of questions because a lot of staff members have done things that I want to do,” Elibe says. “When I first came here, the workload seemed impossible. I didn’t think I’d be able to survive. But Dr. Khasnabis was very patient with a lot of questions. He made the learning experience gradual, and I thank him for that because I was held accountable. It has been an open-ended experience. I’ve learned more with him than I could have ever learned in a textbook. He is always available.”<\/p>\n

Elibe began work as a graduate research assistant under Khasnabis last February. He has since focused on projects pertaining to transportation planning (e.g., highway system planning) and public transportation.<\/p>\n

Detroit’s public transportation has been under-funded compared to other major cities, says Elibe. The metropolitan area of Detroit, Warren and Livonia has the largest metro population in the country without a light-rail or rapid-rail transit system. Part of his research deals with the proposed Woodward Light-Rail Transit System. Elibe and his research group recently submitted a report based on their data collection. “Our ultimate goal for this project is to find out how many people would use light-rail transit based on current land use, trips and back-and-forth and traveling,” he says.<\/p>\n

Washington D.C. will play host to Elibe and about a dozen other engineering “Student of the Year” recipients from regions across the nation on behalf of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Khasnabis nominated Elibe, in part, for his efforts on light-rail transit feasibility.<\/p>\n

Another project has inspired Elibe to narrow his independent study choices. He wants to do something related to highway congestion management. The idea comes from researching tools that will help drivers on congested freeways, including an “intelligent transportation system” that puts out best alternative driving routes using changeable message boards. “It’s a sub-subject of my field of study that I don’t have much experience in,” says Elibe. “But I aim to do something like this in the private industry.”<\/p>\n

He has always dreamed of being a civil engineer. “Since I was really young, I always wanted to go into engineering,” Elibe says. “I wanted to figure things out. I guess I favored (civil) over mechanical because it’s a very broad field. I felt it was an important degree of study because you can’t walk very far without seeing something related to civil engineering.”<\/p>\n

Working behind the scenes has afforded him the ability to see how the industry works. His perception is clearer now. “I’ve been able to see different levels of communication,” Elibe says. “To see these projects work you have to speak to number-crunchers, politicians and the public. Communication is really important for anything you do because it’s a public interest. I was able to see the political process. It’s not as simple as ‘If you build it, they will come.’ There are economic, political, public interest and professional aspects.”<\/p>\n

Elibe hopes to work in the field of “multi-modal transportation,” more extensive public transportation networks that include public rails that run from one state to another. “I’m looking to improve mobility of people in this country, and improve quality of life by doing that,” says Elibe. “I want to make public transportation better in terms of quality or how many people can access it.”<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elibe Elibe is a transportation engineering grad student on a mission. Here he rides the Detroit People Mover as it rolls by the Detroit River. (Photo by Alonso Delarte) by Derrick Bean COE Public Affairs Writer Elibe A. Elibe (pronounced eh-lee-bay) is a graduate student working on his master’s degree in transportation engineering at Wayne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}