Engineering Students Win Traffic Bowl Title; Next Stop: Calgary

For the second straight year, the U of A student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers won the Missouri Valley District Traffic Bowl, beating five university teams Sept. 30 in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Undergraduate civil engineering student Holly Watts and civil engineering doctoral students Baldev Giri and Geoffery Agorku topped teams from Iowa State University, Oklahoma State University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  

The win sends them to the 2027 ITE Collegiate Traffic Bowl Grand Championship, set for July 26 in Calgary, Alberta. 

Giri and Agorku were also on last year's winning team, which took the district title at the fall meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, and earned a spot at the 2026 Grand Championship in Detroit. The chapter also won the district competition in 2021, 2022 and 2023. 

The Traffic Bowl plays like a game show for future transportation engineers. Teams of up to three students compete in a fast-paced, "Jeopardy!"-style quiz on transportation planning, engineering and the institute's history. 

The international program began in 2009 and draws student chapters from across the United States and Canada. District champions advance to the Grand Championship at the institute's annual meeting, where the winner earns a place on the Voigt/Davis Cup. Because next summer's final is in Canada, the institute is already urging advancing teams to get their passports in order. 

"The Traffic Bowl is a great opportunity for students to strengthen their knowledge of transportation engineering in a fun and competitive environment," said Giri, president of the student chapter and a doctoral student in civil engineering. "Preparing for the competition also encourages us to explore topics beyond what we typically encounter in the classroom." 

More importantly, Giri said, the meeting lets students meet and learn from transportation professionals and peers at other universities. 

The Traffic Bowl was one of several U of A wins at the meeting: 

• Civil engineering doctoral student Anindya Debnath won first place in the 2026 Thomas J. Seburn Student Paper Award, with Agorku second. 

• Agorku also placed second in the five-minute presentation competition for "From Space to River Insights: Using Satellite Imagery and AIS to Characterize Inland Waterway Traffic." 

• Giri placed third of 11 entries in the student poster competition for "Developing a Place-Based Car Access Vulnerability Index for Transportation Planning." 

• The chapter received the Student Chapter Momentum Award. 

Sarah Hernandez, associate professor of civil engineering and the Hicks Endowed Chair of Infrastructure Engineering, mentors the chapter. She said the institute and its Missouri Valley District strongly support students engaging with practicing traffic and transportation engineers. 

"This competition allows students a fun way to engage with traffic engineering material and to conference and network with others in their field," Hernandez said. "These students represented our university well!" 

For Giri, the trip to Calgary is the payoff. 

"Winning the competition and having the opportunity to represent the University of Arkansas and Missouri Valley District at the international championship is something we are very proud of," he said. 

About the College of Engineering: The University of Arkansas College of Engineering is the state's largest engineering school, enrolling 4,701 students, including 3,608 undergraduate students and 1,093 graduate students. The college has more than 150 faculty and researchers and nearly 200 staff. The college ranked 65th among public institutions in the 2026 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Engineering Schools rankings and had $66.6 million in new research awards in fiscal year 2026. Its strategic plan, Vision 2035, will dramatically increase the state's engineering graduates by 2035, an outcome that will add $3.9 billion annually to Arkansas' economy.