About
Planned service
MS in Transportation, May 2028
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JTL-Transit Lab, MIT
I'm a first-year MS in Transportation student at MIT and a Graduate Research Assistant in the JTL-Transit Lab, led by Jinhua Zhao. My advisor is Anson Forest Stewart.
I research public transit network planning and operations, using computational optimization and behavioral insight to design transit for the people who rely on it.
With the Chicago Transit Authority, I'm now studying why students stopped riding transit to school after the pandemic, and what would help them ride again.
WMATA and U.S. DOT Volpe Center
In the summer of 2025, I worked on reliability engineering and asset management at WMATA. Before that, from 2024 to 2025, I built data validation pipelines and modeling tools at the Volpe Center.
MIT, Cambridge
BS in Computer Science and Engineering and in Planning, 2026. My thesis received the MIT DUSP Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis award.
I'm a Student Developer and Member-at-Large at SIPB, MIT's student computing club, and I help maintain Hydrant and CourseRoad, which students use to plan their classes. I was President of Dormitory Council from 2025 to 2026, representing over 3,500 undergraduates.
McAllen, Texas
I'm from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, right along the U.S.-Mexico border. My parents both immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. I attended the Science Academy of South Texas, a STEM magnet school, and tutored children from all grades in math, including online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Publications and presentations
- Temkin, D., Fiorista, R., & Zardini, G. (2026, June 24). Urban Bus Network Co-Design: A Structural Framework for Evaluation and Redesign [Conference presentation]. 10th International Symposium on the Use of Public Transit Automated Data for Planning, Operations, and Management (TransitData 2026), Toronto, ON, Canada.Project: School Bus Network Co-Design
- Temkin, D. (2026). A Co-Design Framework for School Bus Network Redesign: Applying Category Theory to Routing, Resources, and Equity [Bachelor’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology].Received the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis award (2026).Project: School Bus Network Co-Design
- Temkin, D. (2025, December 4). Using Category Theory to Create a Generalizable Framework for Bus Network Redesigns Incorporating Equitable Factors [Poster presentation]. MIT EECS SuperUROP Poster Showcase, Cambridge, MA, USA.Project: School Bus Network Co-Design
- Cong, C., & Temkin, D. (2024). NbS and Policy Communication. In H. Pan, Z. Kalantari, C. Ferreira, & C. Cong (Eds.), Nature-Based Solutions in Supporting Sustainable Development Goals: Theory and Practice (pp. 153–172). Elsevier.Project: Nature-Based Solutions Dashboard
Also on Google Scholar and ORCID.
Elsewhere
- Student spotlight: Diego TemkinMIT News, Dec 2025
- Leveraging Nature Based Solutions to Achieve Carbon-Neutral CitiesMIT DUSP, Mar 2024Project: Nature-Based Solutions Dashboard
Skills and honors
In research, I've used optimization and Pareto-front analysis, applied category theory, GIS, and machine learning. I program in Python, TypeScript, Java, C, C#, SQL, and Go. I speak English and Spanish natively.
MIT Karl Taylor Compton Prize, QuestBridge NCM Scholar, HSF Scholar, National Hispanic Scholar, National Rural and Small Town Scholar, and AP Scholar with Distinction.
Transit I've ridden
- AmtrakAcela, California Zephyr, Lake Shore Limited, and Northeast Regional
- BostonMBTA and EZRide
- ChicagoCTA
- El PasoSun Metro
- LondonUnderground
- New York CitySubway, LIRR, AirTrain JFK, and Roosevelt Island Tramway
- ParisMetro
- RomeMetro
- San FranciscoBART and Muni
- TorontoTTC and UP Express
- Washington, DCWMATA