UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Vikash Gayah, professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) in the Penn State College of Engineering, has been named director of the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (LTI), effective July 1. He has served as interim director of the institute since 2023, and his involvement with the institute began when he was first hired as assistant professor of CEE in 2012.
With five full-time research faculty and 45 faculty affiliates from both the College of Engineering and other colleges around Penn State, LTI has a mission built on research, education and service, Gayah said. Its three largest research centers are the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies, responsible for approximately $2 million in research contracts each year; the Bus Research and Testing Center, which has been in operation since 1989 and is responsible for $7.5 million in contracts each year; and the Northeast Center of Excellence for Pavement Technology, which is responsible for about $750,000 each year. A fourth center that has been in place for seven years, the Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multimodal Transportation Infrastructure Systems, is winding down its operations and will cease in September.
Expanding these existing research partnerships is one of Gayah’s main goals as director, with a particular focus on interdisciplinary collaboration.
“We want to expand our portfolio to work more closely with other Penn State institutes, such as the Social Science Research Institute, the Institute of Energy and the Environment, the Institute of Computational and Data Sciences, and the Penn State Climate Consortium,” Gayah said. “These partnerships can help push us further on research related to infrastructure, resiliency, climate change, sustainability, equity and access, and mobility advanced technologies, which would include research on electric vehicles, automation, connectivity and transportation safety.”
In addition to engaging with other institutes around Penn State, Gayah also is working to add research centers to the institute and engage more of the private sector in its work. He also hopes to add more affiliate faculty to the institute, who remain in their home academic units but route their research through LTI.
Gayah received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Central Florida and his doctorate in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. As head of the Urban Transportation Systems Group, Gayah focuses his research on urban mobility, traffic operations, traffic flow theory, traffic safety and nonmotorized transportation.
“I’ve made an impact with my research to some degree as a researcher, but I believe I can make a bigger impact in my role as director by helping others to expand their research portfolios,” Gayah said. “This is critically important, especially as Penn State works to do as much as it can in the transportation space as part of its land-grant mission.”
Gayah plans to continue bolstering LTI’s several annual industry-focused conferences, including the Transportation Engineering and Safety Conference, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary.
Through these industry connections and outreach, LTI will position its research on future-focused topics, Gayah said, such as resilient infrastructure, advanced vehicle technologies and socially sustainable transportation solutions.
“We design solutions for mobility for people as opposed to mobility for mobility’s sake,” Gayah said. “People need transportation for access to food and health care as well as access to nonmotorized roadway vehicles, like pedestrian and bicycle paths. These needs will only grow and evolve over time, and LTI will be there for practical solutions and to lead change in transportation engineering.”