Sevara Melibaeva, an M.S.T. student from Uzbekistan, has been awarded a position in the World Bank’s prestigious Young Professionals Program. Melibaeva will begin work at the bank’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in September. Her first two years will be spent rotating among several positions to gain experience, after which she’ll be assigned a permanent role. The focus of her work will be on transportation projects funded by the World Bank in developing countries, including policy dialogue with governments and assistance in developing and implementing sustainable transport infrastructure and services. This will be Melibaeva’s second stint with the bank; after earning an M.B.A. in Tashkent and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, she was a member of a World Bank team working on sustainable development in transportation in Europe and Central Asia. AT MIT, she is working with Professor Joseph Sussman on construction of a high-speed rail system between Lisbon and Porto, in research funded by the MIT-Portugal Program.