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Zahra Ansarilari

About

Zahra Ansarilari

Ph.D. in Transportation · University of Toronto

Zahra Ansarilari is a transportation systems researcher working at the intersection of operations research and public transit. Her doctoral work at the University of Toronto reframed transfer synchronization — coordinating timetables so riders make their connections — as an optimization problem, building two-stage stochastic and mixed-integer programs that stay feasible even when demand, walking times and running times refuse to cooperate.

As a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich she extended that work to the E-Bike City project, studying how treating the bicycle as a first-class access and egress mode reshapes the design of a transit network. Her research spans transit scheduling and optimization, active-mobility integration, travel-behaviour modelling and infrastructure asset management, and has appeared in the European Journal of Operational Research, Computers & Operations Research and Transportmetrica A.

Timeline

Appointments and education

  1. 2024 – 2025

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich

    E-Bike City project: multi-scale responsive public transport planning for bi-modal demand.

  2. 2023 – 2024

    Data Scientist

    Neshan Map

    Improving travel-time estimation using time-series analysis and optimization methods.

  3. 2023 – 2023

    Public Transit Planner

    Aavande-Tarho-Andieshe, Shiraz

    Redesigning the mass-transit network of the city of Shiraz, Iran.

  4. 2016 – 2022

    Ph.D. in Transportation

    Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto

    Dissertation: Transfer time optimization in transit scheduling.

  5. 2014 – 2015

    Research Assistant

    Institute of Transportation Studies & Research (ITSR), Sharif University of Technology

    Designing freight-movement regulations and enforcement in Tehran, under Dr. Amir Samimi.

  6. 2013 – 2015

    M.Sc. in Construction Engineering & Management

    Civil Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology

    Research: Integrated airport pavement management.

  7. 2011 – 2013

    Minor in Physics

    Physics Department, Sharif University of Technology

  8. 2009 – 2013

    B.Sc. in Civil Engineering

    Civil Engineering, Sharif University of Technology

Talks Awards Media