EDUCATION
Ph.D., Transportation Systems, MIT, 1986
MS., Transportation, MIT, 1983
B.Sc.Eng., National Technical University of Athens, Greece, 1980
POSITIONS
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Sep. 2014 –
Visiting Scholar, Google, July 2015 – Jan. 2016
Research Associate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, June 2013 – August 2014
Visiting Professor of Transport Science, Division of Traffic and Logistics, KTH, Oct. 2013 – present
Professor of Transport Science, Division of Traffic and Logistics, KTH, Sep. 2007 – Sep. 2013
Visiting Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Jan. 2012 – May 2013
Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Sep. 2002 – Aug. 2007
Operations Research Analyst, VOLPE National Transportation Systems Center, Aug. 1998 – Sep. 2002
Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Sep. 1994 – July 1998
Visiting Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, July 1993 – August 1994
Assistant Professor, MIT, Department of Civil Engineering, July 1987 – June 1993
Lecturer, MIT, Department of Civil Engineering, July 1986 – June 1987
Research and Teaching Assistant, MIT, Department of Civil Engineering, Sep. 1980 – Aug. 1986
ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITIES
Director, Transport Platform, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 2011 – 2012
Transportation is one of the five strategic research areas at KTH. The role of the platforms is to coordinate research activities, promote interdisciplinary research, and establish strategic directions and associated investments. The transport platform director is responsible for:
- Coordinating all key transport related research at various Departments and Schools at KTH, including ICT, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Vehicle Technology, Transportation Science, Urban Planning and Environmental Engineering, etc.
- Developing and maintaining transport research vision and strategy for KTH
- Acting as a key KTH contact for the transport area toward research councils, public sector and automotive, telecommunications, and other private sector entities.
Director and PI, Strategic research funding in Transport, TRENoP, 2010 – 2012
The establishment of the strategic area in transport was the result of a competitive funding process at more than $ 3.2 million per year for an initial phase of 5 years (renewable). The funding aims at building the transport research agenda through increased faculty funding and faculty renewal in key areas. The focus is on research aiming at the transformation of the transport system towards a greener, safer, “smarter” system through the integration of technology, systems and policy. Developed and led a number of initiatives:
- Establishment of new interdisciplinary faculty positions in transportation across the vrious Schools at KTH.
- Research activities in urban mobility, transport for competitiveness and growth, and energy efficient infrastructure, through seed funding opportunities.
- Organization of thematic networks and workshops to increase collaboration among researchers.
- Establishment of the “Distinguished Speakers in Transport” series.
- Establishment of iTRUE (Innovative Transport Research Undergraduate Experience) program to attract undergraduate students to transport related programs and careers through their exposure to transport research
Division Head, Division of Traffic and Logistics, KTH 2007- 2012
Responsibilities include academic leadership, education, vision and strategy, personnel management and supervision. Examples of main initiatives:
- Led the rebuilding of the division by more than doubling its turnover ca. $3 million, hiring new faculty members and researchers, increasing the PhD students to more than 15, and reorganizing its educational activities.
- Initiated and led the effort for the establishment of the Department of Transport Science with participation of three divisions originally belonging to separate departments in the School: Highway and Railway Eng., Traffic and Logistics, and Transport and Location Analysis.
- Established the iMobility Lab, with funding from IBM and various national sources. It includes the computational and software infrastructure for processing real time streams of large amounts of traffic and traffic related data from urban networks. A new computing paradigm, stream computing, is also explored. The lab aims at using data from opportunistic and traditional sensors to develop improved methods for multimodal traffic information and services. Data from 1500 GPS-equipped taxis, microwave detectors along the motorway system, weather, incidents, and soon mobile air quality sensors, are received continuously in real time. The laboratory hosts extensive databases (that are becoming increasingly available to other researchers), algorithms for their processing, and open source traffic and transit simulation models. The work was awarded the IBM Smarter Planet award at the IBM Software Day 2010. It serves as the platform of a number of other projects.
- Established and formalized national and international collaborations in research (UC Berkeley, MIT, Technion, and many Swedish Universities), and education (ITSEdunet, ITS Graduate School)
Deputy Department Head, Department of Transport Science, KTH, Jan. 2008 – 2012
Merit Committee, Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, 2006, 2105, 2017
Faculty Promotion Committee, Department of Civil Eng., Northeastern University, member, 2005
Faculty advisor for ITE student chapter Department of Civil Eng., Northeastern University, 2005 – 07
Merit Committee, Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, chairman, 2004
Undergr. Committee, Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, member, 2006 – 07
Transp. Graduate Advisor, Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, 2004 – 07
MS admissions officer, Dep. of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, Transport. 2004 – 07
Computing Committee, College of Engineering, Northeastern University, member, 2002–07
PhD Committee, Department of Civil Engineering, Northeastern University, member, 2002 – 07
Computing Committee for CEE Strategic Plan, Dep. of Civil Engineering, CMU, chairman, 1996
Committee on Computing Support for Education, CMU, member, 1994
Educational Committee, Center for Transportation Studies, MIT, member, 1992 – 1993
Admissions Officer, Transportation Systems Division, MIT, 1992 – 1993
Graduate Officer, Transportation Systems Division, MIT, 1988 – 1992
HONORS AND AWARDS
Research
Traffic Simulation Lifetime Achievement Award, Transportation Research Board, 2016
IEEE ITS Outstanding Application Award (for the DynaMIT system), 2011
IBM Smarter Planet Award, IBM Software 2010, Stockholm, 2010
Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics Committee, Best user paper Award, TRB, 2010
Achievement Certificate, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, 1999, 2001
Commendation from the United States of America Secretary of Transportation, 1999
Finalist (MITSIM), DISCOVER Magazine Awards in Software, 1997
Visiting Fellow, Oxford University, England, summer 1994
Mitsui Career Development Chair in Contemporary Technology, MIT, 1990 – 1992
Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development Assistant Professor, MIT, 1989 – 1990
Teaching
Department of Civil Engineering, MIT, Effective Teaching Award, 1989
Supervised theses awards
“Arterial Travel Time Estimation from Automatic Number Plate Recognition Data” Kazagli, E.
Best thesis award by the Swedish Association of Operations Research, March 2013
“Study of the holding problem using optimization algorithms and meso simulation,” Rufí, F.M,
Best thesis award by the Swedish Association of Operations Research, March 2012
“Alternative Bus Rapid Transit Operational Designs: ACCRA Case Study,” Naah/Alhassan,
Best thesis award in Public Transport, Transport Forum, Sweden, Jan. 2010
“Integrated Driving Behavior Modeling,” T. Toledo (co-advisor)
Honorable Mention, Transportation Science and Logistics Dissertation prize, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 2003
Honorable Mention, Eric Pas Dissertation Prize in Travel Behavior Research, International Association for Travel Behavior Research (IATBR), 2002
“An Investigation of Design Parameters of Advanced Driver Information Systems,” A.Yablonski
Second Place, Transportation Research Forum, student paper competition, 1991
SERVICE
Conference/Symposia Organization
2nd International Workshop on Automated Data Collection Systems, TransitData2016, August 2016
6th International Symposium on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service, June 2011
CyberSocial Physical Systems. New Perspectives on Transportation Infrastructure Pricing,
UIUC-KTH Workshop, Chicago, August 2012 (co-organizer)
Symposium on User Acceptance of IVHS Products, Cambridge, MA, 1993
Select Conference and Session Organizing Activities
World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTR), organizing sessions on “Calibration and Validation of Traffic Simulation Models,” Berkeley, CA, June 2007.
TRISTAN IV, 6th Triennial Symposium on Transportation Analysis, member of scientific committee, June 2007.
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, member of International Program Committee, Shangai, China, 2003.
8th International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Symposium on Transportation Systems ‘97, member of International Program Committee, Chania, Greece, 1997.
TRB session on “Artificial Neural Networks in Transportation Engineering,” 1996.
2nd International Conference on Imaging Technologies: Techniques and Civil Engineering Applications, member of Organizing Committee, 1996.
Session on “Traffic Prediction for ATIS/ATMS” for the 7th Word Conference on Transport Research, 1995, Lyon, France.
Select Session Chair
ISTTT
Symposia on Transportation Simulation
TRB
INFORMS
World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR)
Triennial Conference on Operations Research, IFORS’ 90
Editorial Board Membership
Transportation Research C
EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics
Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems: Communications, Operations, Planning, and Technology
Program Evaluation Panels
Coordinator, Evaluation panel for the Department of Geodesy, AUTH, 2013
Committees
Various TRB Committees (completed)
Council Member, Transportation Science Section of INFORMS (completed)
Reviewer
National Science Foundation (NSF), Transportation Research Board (TRB), Transportation Research, Transportation Science, ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, PATH, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, Intelligent Transportation Peer-to-Peer Program, Swiss National Foundation, Qatar National Foundation, United Arab Emirates (UAE) University, Office of Research Affairs, UTC, ISTTT and other conferences and symposia.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS (past and present)
Transportation Research Board (TRB)
Technical Chamber of Greece
Word Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTR)
INFORMS
IEEE
TEACHING ACTIVITIES
Transportation Data Collection and Analysis
Transportation Analysis and Planning
Transportation Demand Analysis
Transportation Performance
Traffic Engineering
Transportation Networks and Applications
Traffic Simulation
Transportation Networks and Equilibrium Analysis
Probability and Engineering Economy
Senior Design Project
Computer Algorithms in Transportation
Applications of Information Technology in Civil Engineering
Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving
Advanced Programming in Computer-Aided Engineering and Management
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Probability and Statistics