Ziad Yassine, PhD
Education
Doctor of Philosophy | Transportation Engineering | UC Berkeley
August 2021 – May 2025Minors: Data Science and Statistics
GPA: 3.9/4.0
Dissertation: Modeling User Behavior, EV Charging Operations, and Spatial-Temporal Access in Carsharing Systems to Enhance User Retention, Optimize Energy Efficiency, and Improve Accessibility
Classes: Data Science Principles, Machine Learning, Causal Inference, Time Series Analysis
Scholarship: Intelligent Transportation Society of California and California Transportation Foundation Scholarship
Award: UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) PhD Student of the Year
Master of Science | Transportation Engineering | UC Berkeley
August 2018 – May 2019GPA: 3.9/4.0
Classes: Scalable Spatial Analytics, Systems Analysis and Operations, Behavioral Modeling, Business Fundamentals
Bachelor of Engineering | Civil Engineering | American University of Beirut
September 2014 – June 2018GPA: 4.0/4.0, High Distinction
Work Experience
Scientist, Autonomous Mobility & Delivery |Uber| San Francisco, CA
July 2025 – PresentApplied Science Intern |Zipline| San Francisco, CA
May 2024 – December 2024- Designed and executed a discrete choice experiment to quantify consumer adoption of drone delivery versus courier delivery (e.g.,Uber Eats,DoorDash) as a function of cost, time, and individual behavior.
- Developed a market segmentation model using discrete choice analysis to identify key consumer personas and predict drone delivery adoption based on demographics, behavioral factors, and operational characteristics.
- Orchestrated a controlled crossover experiment to estimate drone delivery impacts on customer satisfaction; conducted randomized trials and analyzed repeated measures to reveal a 30% increase in overall satisfaction.
- Simulated supply chain operations for medical product deliveries by developing geospatial models to optimize drone and truck delivery routes, enabling a hybrid system that improved energy efficiency by 50%.
PhD Student Researcher |Transportation Sustainability Research Center| UC Berkeley
August 2021 – PresentLed a behavioral and environmental impact analysis of an electric vehicle carsharing system:
- Implemented a finite state machine to transform trip data into a vehicle state tracker, enabling the inference of vehicle charging activities and associated emissions, revealing a 43% net emission reduction from electrification.
- Modeled user retention using survival analysis, showing a 25% increase in retention due to a 20% pricing incentive.
- Developed a geospatial framework that models user access to grocery stores in terms of cost, distance, and time.
Graduate Student Instructor | Transportation Sustainability | UC Berkeley
January 2024 – December 2024- Facilitated in-class discussions and office hours for over 100 students, graded assignments, and provided personalized feedback, achieving a 6.8/7.0 instructor rating and exceeding the department's average rating of 6.4.
Research Associate |Transportation Sustainability Research Center| UC Berkeley
August 2019 – July 2021- Evaluated innovative mobility on demand pilots in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Projects
Founder |Text-to-Meme Generator
March 2024 – Present- Developed an AI-driven personalized meme generator leveraging BERT's word embeddings and OpenAI's GPT model, and engineered a Python-based pipeline to process user requests in real-time.
Machine Learning | Class: CS 289A
January 2022 – May 2022- Developed a time-series regression model using Uber Movement data to forecast COVID-19 lockdown impacts on traffic speeds, leveraging spatial-temporal features to detect distributional shifts and improve model adaptability.
Data Science | Class: Data C200
August 2021 – December 2021- Engineered text-based features like text length, punctuation usage, and capitalization patterns to train a logistic regression classifier for email spam detection, achieving over 88% accuracy.
Technical Skills
- Tech Stack: Python (scikit-learn, PyTorch, transformers, SciPy, FastAPI), SQL, Spark, Databricks, Mode Analytics, Git
- APIs: Google Maps (Distance Matrix, Geocoding, Places), Mapbox (Directions, Isochrone), OpenStreetMap, OpenAI
- Data Science: statistical analysis, feature engineering, experimental design, hypothesis testing, A/B testing, visualization
- Machine Learning: classification, regression, density estimation, dimensionality reduction, clustering
Doctoral Dissertation
- Yassine, Z. (2025). Who benefits from shared electric mobility? Evaluating energy and environmental impacts, user behavior, and accessibility: A case study of one-way electric vehicle carsharing in Los Angeles. [Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley]. eScholarship.
Journal Publications
- Yassine, Z., Deakin, E., Martin, E. W., & Shaheen, S. A. (2025). Driving equity: Can electric vehicle carsharing improve grocery access in underserved communities? A case study of BlueLA. Smart Cities, 8(4), 104. https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities8040104
- Yassine, Z., Martin, E. W., & Shaheen, S. A. (2025). Is electric vehicle carsharing for everyone? From activity patterns to user retention. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 139, 104544.
- Yassine, Z., Martin, E. W., & Shaheen, S. A. (2024). Can Electric Vehicle Carsharing Bridge the Green Divide? A Study of BlueLA’s Environmental Impacts among Underserved Communities and the Broader Population. Energies, 17(2), 356. [Editor's Choice]
Industry Reports
- North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA). (2024). 5th Annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report.
- North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA). (2023). 4th Annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report.
- Martin, E., Yassine, Z., Cohen, A., Shaheen, S., & Brown, L. (2022). Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Demonstration: Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) Public-Private-Partnership for Paratransit, Evaluation Report. FTA Report No. 0213. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration.
- North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA). (2022). 3rd Annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report.
- Martin, E., Yassine, Z., Cohen, A., Wong, S., Soysal, S., Shaheen, S., & Brown, L. (2021). Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Demonstration: City of Palo Alto and Bay Area Fair Value Commuting, Evaluation Report. FTA Report No. 0206. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration.
- North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA). (2021). 2nd Annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report.
- Martin, E. W., Cohen, A. P., Yassine, Z., Brown, L., & Shaheen, S. A. (2020). Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Demonstration: Bay Area Rapid Transit Integrated Carpool to Transit Access Program, Evaluation Report. FTA Report No. 0156. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration.
- Martin, E., Yassine, Z., Cohen, A., Shaheen, S., & Brown, L. (2020). Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Demonstration: Valley Metro Mobility Platform, Evaluation Report. FTA Report No. 0175. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration.
- North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association (NABSA). (2020). 1st Annual Shared Micromobility State of the Industry Report.