Xianbiao (XB) Hu
Associate Professor of Transportation Engineering, Penn State · Director, Smart Mobility Lab
XB is pronounced “Sean-Bell”.
Automated & Cooperative Driving, Work Zone Automation (ATMA), Transportation Electrification, Transportation System Modeling
Dr. Xianbiao (XB) Hu is an Associate Professor of Transportation Engineering at Penn State and directs the Smart Mobility Lab. His research covers automated vehicle perception and planning, physical AI and foundation models (LLMs and VLMs) for transportation, large-scale telematics data analytics, dynamic system modeling, and transportation electrification.
His research has been supported by 43 funded projects (35 external) totaling $22.6 million, from sponsors including USDOT, the Department of Energy, PennDOT, and Pennsylvania DEP. He has published 92 journal articles. He is Managing Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems and chairs the IEEE ITSS Technical Committee on Intelligent Electrified Mobility Operations and Infrastructure.
Honors and awards
- 2026Penn State Emerging Academic Leaders (PSEAL) program
- 2024Harry West Teaching Award, Penn State
- 2024Best Editor Award, International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology
- 2023Outstanding Reviewer, Transportation Research Part D and ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A
- 2022Game Changer Academies Panel Fellow, NSF CMMI
- 2021Excellent Associate Editor, International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology
- 2020Joseph H. Senne Jr. Academy of Civil Engineers Faculty Scholarly Achievement Award, Missouri S&T
- 2020Outstanding Teaching Award, Missouri S&T
- 2020University of Missouri System Teaching Scholar
- 2019ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Fellowship
- 2018Excellent Paper Award, World Transport Convention
Professional service
- Managing EditorJournal of Intelligent Transportation Systems
- ChairIEEE ITSS Technical Committee on Intelligent Electrified Mobility Operations and Infrastructure (E-Mobility)
- Associate EditorIEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems; IEEE Electrification Magazine; Transportation Research Record; International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology
- Representative and voting memberIEEE Transportation Electrification Council (for IEEE ITSS)
- Research Coordinator and Paper Review CoordinatorTRB Committee on Maintenance and Operations Management (AKR10)2021–2025
- MemberTRB Standing Committee on Maintenance Management (AKJ14)2025–2028
- Board of DirectorsChinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA)
- Penn State RepresentativeSmart Belt Coalition2023–present
Career
- 2025–present
Penn State
Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
- 2021–2025
Penn State
Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
- 2017–2021
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Assistant Professor
- 2011–2017
Metropia Inc., Tucson, AZ
Founding team member; Director of R&D
- 2016–2017
University of Arizona
Affiliate Professor
- 2013
University of Arizona
Ph.D., Transportation Engineering (advisor: Yi-Chang Chiu)
- 2009
Tongji University
M.S., Transportation Engineering
- 2006
Tongji University
B.S., Transportation Engineering
Teaching
CE 100S First-Year Seminar
Penn State
Fall 2024, Fall 2025, Spring 2026, Fall 2026
CE 321 Highway Engineering
Penn State
Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2025, Spring 2026, Fall 2026
CE 521 Transportation Networks and System Analysis
Penn State
Fall 2022, Spring 2024, Fall 2025
CE 597 Transportation Data Science
Penn State
Fall 2024, Fall 2026
CE 5513 Traffic Engineering
Missouri S&T
Fall 2018–2020
CE 5515 Advanced Traffic Operation and Capacity Analysis
Missouri S&T
Spring 2018–2020
From startup to academiaBefore joining academia, XB spent six years (2011–2017) helping build Metropia, a University of Arizona spinoff.
Metropia tried to reduce congestion by changing behavior instead of building roads. Metropia predicted future traffic, offered travelers several departure times with predicted travel times, and rewarded them for choices that relieved congestion. A field study in Los Angeles showed promising behavior changes and travel time savings.
XB joined as a student and founding team member in 2011 and, by the time he left in 2017, had been programmer, algorithm developer, system architect, cloud and API engineer, routing lead, project and product manager, and finally Director of R&D and General Manager of its subsidiary in China. Along the way he managed an FHWA-funded study on Pay-As-You-Drive-And-You-Save (PAYDAYS) insurance, which used smartphone GPS data and traffic context to rate driving risk.
That experience still shapes the lab: a preference for problems that matter to agencies and users, models that run in real systems, and research that is tested in the field.