Nour Khoudari, CST ’24, received the 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuška Thesis Prize in recognition of the outstanding contributions in her PhD thesis, titled “From Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales: Traffic Waves and Sparse Control.” Khoudari is currently a Golomb Visiting Assistant Professor at Purdue University.

The annual prize is awarded to the author of “an outstanding PhD thesis in mathematics, interdisciplinary in nature, possibly with applications in other fields.” Khoudari works in the area of vehicular traffic modeling and control, with emphasis on bridging the gap between the dynamics of models at microscopic vehicle-scale and macroscopic city-scale flow patterns in unstable traffic regimes. This rapidly growing research area uses ideas and tools from modeling, data science, kinetics, transportation engineering and other fields to provide novel mathematical foundations for understanding nonlinear traveling traffic waves.

“I am truly honored to receive the Babuška Thesis Prize,” said Khoudari. “I want to extend my sincere appreciation to my advisor, Benjamin Seibold, for his invaluable guidance and support that helped shape both my thesis and my mathematical maturity. I also want to thank the Temple Mathematics Department for providing a stimulating research environment and for nominating me.”