Yalda Rahmati

Texas A&M University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Papers

Total Citations

117

H-Index

About

Yalda Rahmati is a transportation researcher whose work sits at the cutting edge of human-autonomous vehicle interaction, blending behavioral science, robotics, and transportation engineering to address one of the defining challenges of modern mobility. Her research focuses on understanding how human drivers perceive, adapt to, and interact with autonomous vehicles (AVs) on shared roadways — a critical yet historically underexplored dimension of AV deployment. Rahmati's most influential contribution, "Influence of Autonomous Vehicles on Car-Following Behavior of Human Drivers" (2019), has garnered 90 citations and shed critical light on how fundamentally different AV decision-making logic reshapes the driving dynamics of surrounding human drivers. This work has become a key reference for researchers modeling mixed-traffic environments. Building on this foundation, her 2020 paper introducing a game theory-based framework for modeling human-vehicle interactions offers a rigorous mathematical approach to capturing the uncertainties inherent in human decision-making — earning 27 citations and demonstrating the breadth of her interdisciplinary reach. Through these contributions, Rahmati has established herself as a pioneering voice in ensuring that the transition to automated transportation accounts for the complex, unpredictable nature of human behavior.