UFTI Director Wins the ASCE 2015 James Laurie Prize

Dr. Lily Elefteriadou has been selected by the Transportation and Development Institute to receive the 2015 James Laurie Prize for her contributions in advancing the field of transportation engineering and “For outstanding leadership as one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of traffic operations, traffic flow theory and simulation and her research which has been incorporated into the Highway Capacity Manual.” She will personally accept the award during the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Annual Convention, which will take place in New York City this October.

Dr. Elefteriadou is the Director of the UF Transportation Institute (UFTI) and the Kisinger Campo Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Florida. Her research focus is traffic operations, traffic flow theory and simulation. She is the principal investigator of the US DOT-funded Regional University Transportation Center for Region 4 (Southeast Transportation Research Innovation Development and Education, or STRIDE). STRIDE involves seven other universities in the southeast and is funded with $6.8 Million from the US DOT plus an equal amount of cost sharing from non-federal sources (period of performance is January 2012 to January 2016). STRIDE focuses on issues of livability, safety and economic competitiveness.

She has served as the principal investigator for several other federal and state projects, funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Federal Highway Administration, PennDOT and FDOT. She has authored or co-authored more than one hundred publications and reports related to traffic operational quality and highway design, as well as a textbook titled “Introduction to Traffic Flow Theory”.   Dr. Elefteriadou serves on the Editorial Board of the Transportation Research: Part B, and is the Chair of the Transportation Research Board’s Highway Capacity and Quality of Service Committee. She is also on the Executive Board of the Council of University Transportation Centers and the President of the ARTBA Research and Education Council.

In January 2001, Dr. Elefteriadou received the Transportation Research Board’s Fred Burggraff award for excellence in research and in September – December 2001, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to perform research at the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands. She also received the 2003 PSES Outstanding Research Award from the College of Engineering at Penn State and the Kisinger Campo & Associates Corp. Term Professorship Award from the University of Florida in September 2005.

Dr. Elefteriadou received her Graduate Diploma in Surveying and Environmental Engineering, (five year program) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 1987. She received her M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, in June 1990, and her Ph.D. in Transportation Planning and Engineering from NYU Poly, New York, in June 1994.

Congratulations!