Danielle Berman named Adele A. Konefal Women's Young Professional Scholarship recipient

10/19/2018

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (LTI) today announced that Danielle Berman, an analyst with Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc. in Reston, Virginia, has been named the recipient of the 2018 Adele A. Konefal Women’s Young Professional Scholarship. The scholarship will cover Berman’s conference registration fee, hotel and travel expenses to attend the 24th Annual Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference (TESC), December 5-7.

“We are pleased to award this scholarship to Danielle,” said Eric Donnell, LTI director and general co-chair of TESC. “As this year’s conference theme suggests, we are very focused on positively impacting the future of transportation engineering. I had the pleasure of working with Danielle during her time at Penn State, so I am confident she has the education, work ethic and drive, to bring great ideas to the industry.”

While attending TESC, Berman will be able to choose to attend sessions from five key tracks including safety, operations, planning, design and technology. Topics covered will include a wide range of transportation subjects, with considerable depth in each session. Concurrent sessions, certification training and a transportation technology exhibition are also planned.

“Given the speed at which the industry is currently changing, I believe attending TESC is one of the best ways I can learn about the next generation of transportation, make connections with other professionals, and prepare myself today to be the best engineer I can be, tomorrow,” said Berman.

Berman is a 2018 Schreyer Honors College graduate. She holds a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering and a Master of Science in civil engineering, both from Penn State. Her interests include complete streets, autonomous vehicle integration and city-wide signal coordination. While at Penn State, Berman served as president of the Penn State chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and an officer for the Penn State chapter of the American Society of Engineers. She was also heavily involved in the Penn State chapter of Bridges to Prosperity, through which she helped build two bridges in Panama during the course of her university career. During the summer of 2018, Berman also worked on her third bridge build with Penn State in Bolivia.

The scholarship was established in memory of Adele A. Konefal, a longtime resident of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was employed as a safety traffic manager at various transportation companies in the area.

Since 1995, the Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference (TESC) has been attracting professionals from throughout Pennsylvania, the mid-Atlantic region, and the country. It continues to be an authoritative source of information on pressing issues from some of the foremost experts in transportation today.

The Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute is Penn State’s transportation research center. Since its founding in 1968, the Larson Institute has maintained a threefold mission of research, education and service. The institute brings together top faculty, world-class facilities and enterprising students from across the University in partnership with public and private stakeholders to address critical transportation-related problems.