Leadership

CARTEEH Director
Joe Zietsman, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Zietsman is an assistant agency director and center director at Texas A&M Transportation Institute.  He is part of TTI’s Leadership Team and leads a division of approximately 30 people that are responsible for research in the area of transportation and the environment. The division is divided into three programs—Air Quality, Transportation Modeling, and Environment and Planning. Dr. Zietsman has 30 years of professional experience in the field of transportation engineering with a specialization in air quality, sustainable transportation, transportation planning, and the emerging topic of public health and transportation. Over the past 15 years at TTI, he has been PI of more than 50 research projects, valued at more than $16 million. Two examples of these projects are a $3 million project for EPA on truck idling emissions, a nearly $500,000 project for FMCSA on infiltration of pollutant emissions into truck cabins during idling, and a $200,000 cross-disciplinary project on characterizing exposure of traffic-related air pollution and its associated health impacts on pregnant women. Dr. Zietsman also conceived the idea, raised the funding, and oversaw the development of a $3 million one-of-a-kind emissions testing facility at Texas A&M University. Dr. Zietsman has more than 70 technical publications and has co-authored a book on sustainable transportation. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences where he has delivered many keynote addresses including some on the topic of health and transportation. Dr. Zietsman is very active with TRB. He is immediate past-Chair of the Committee on Sustainable Transportation (ADD40), Chair of Research Sub-committee on Transportation and Air Quality (ADC20), and is a member of the Task Force on Arterials and Health (ADD55T).

CARTEEH Associate Director
Mary Fox, Ph.D.

Dr. Mary A. Fox is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management and Acting Director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute (RSPPI). Her research is focused on quantitative human health risk assessment as a part of environmental policy making, particularly approaches to cumulative and chemical mixtures risk assessment. Dr. Fox applies cumulative risk assessment concepts and methods in her community environmental health practice projects and is currently engaged with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to develop cumulative risk approaches for occupational settings. Dr. Fox has served on three National Academy of Sciences panels, the Institute of Medicine Committees on Gulf War and Health, Volume 10, Long-term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on the Health Risks of Phthalates. In the past several years, Dr. Fox has offered trainings/professional development at Fudan University in China and at Taiwan University in Taipei, and made the keynote address at the International Symposium on Agri-Food Safety in Seoul, South Korea. Prior to joining the faculty at JHU, Dr. Fox was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Risk Policy Fellow and a Project Officer on the Board of Environmental Studies and Toxicology at the National Academy of Sciences.

CARTEEH University Lead
Michael Rodgers, Ph.D.

Dr. Michael O. Rodgers has held various research and academic appointments at GT for more than 35 years in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, GT-CEE Public Policy, and the GT Research Institute. Dr. Rodgers’s research focus has been on the development and application of models to complex systems in transportation, energy, and the environment. In GT-CEE, Dr. Rodgers has led the development team for a number of major systems models (e.g., Mobile Emissions Assessment System for Urban and Regional Evaluations for the EPA and USDOT and the Atlanta Heavy-Duty Vehicle and Equipment Inventory and Emissions Study modeling system for heavy-duty vehicle activity estimates). At the GT Research Institute, Dr. Rodgers has led the long running (24 years) Continuous Atlanta Fleet Evaluation that uses remote sensing methods to evaluate short- and long-term trends in vehicle emissions. Dr. Rodgers has served as PI/project director on more than 100 research programs for a variety of agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, EPA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, and USDOT.

CARTEEH University Lead
Wen-Whai Li, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Wen-Whai Li, Professor of Civil Engineering, is the leader of the air quality research group at UTEP. His research interests include air quality monitoring and modeling, environmental exposure and health risk assessment, accident analysis, Superfund site investigation, and feasibility study. He has completed more than 30 research projects as the PI or co-PI and published 38 journal articles, more than 110 conference proceedings and abstracts, and numerous technical reports. Prior to joining UTEP, he worked as a Group Leader/Senior Science Advisor at ENVIRON International Corporation (1988-1996) where he was involved in emissions and air quality modeling at Industrial and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act sites, human health risk assessment, accidental releases, and environmental litigation projects.

CARTEEH University Lead
Kanok Boriboonsomsin, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Kanok Boriboonsomsin is an Associate Research Professor in the College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) at the University of California, Riverside. His research focus is on sustainable transportation systems and technologies. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in the areas of traffic simulation, vehicle activity analysis, vehicle energy and emissions modeling, intelligent transportation systems, as well as connected and automated vehicle technologies. Dr. Boriboonsomsin is a member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He also serves on the TRB’s Transportation and Air Quality Standing Committee and as the Associate Editor for IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine.

CARTEEH Assistant Director, Research
Tara Ramani, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. Ramani is an Assistant Research Engineer with TTI’s Environment and Air Quality Division, and has played a major role in several of TTI’s air quality and sustainability related studies over the last 10 years. Her work includes projects related to sustainable transportation, transportation air quality, health and transportation, emissions modeling, in-use emissions testing, performance measurement, and decision-making. She is active in the Transportation Research Board (TRB), and serves as a member of the TRB Standing Committee on Sustainable Transportation.

CARTEEH Program Advisor
Melissa S. Tooley, Ph.D., P.E.

ORCID ID

Dr. Tooley has 17 years of experience as a UTC Director. She served as Director of the Southwest University Transportation Center (SWUTC), a regional UTC which terminated in fall of 2016. She was the Director of the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center (MBTC) at the University of Arkansas until she joined TTI as the founding Director of the University Transportation Center for Mobility (UTCM). A leader in the transportation research and education community, she is a former President of the Council of University Transportation Centers, a former President of the Research and Education Division of ARTBA, and was until recently the Research Subcommittee Chair of the TRB Committee on Education and Training. In 2015, she chaired the National Academy of Sciences steering committee for the UTC Spotlight Conference on Automated and Connected Vehicles, and in 2014 chaired the supply chain track for the UTC Spotlight Conference on Economic Competitiveness. Dr. Tooley is a recipient of ARTBA’s S.S. Steinberg Award, given for outstanding contributions to transportation education.

Dr. Tooley currently serves ARTBA as Vice-Chairman at Large and was the inaugural Chair of ARTBA’s Women Leaders in Transportation Design and Construction Award Council. She is a member of the Board of Regents of the Eno Transportation Foundation and is a former Eno Transportation Fellowship Recipient. Dr. Tooley was a Master’s and Ph.D. level recipient of the Eisenhower Fellowship, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. As a graduate student, she was selected as MBTC’s Student of the Year in 1994. She was an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Arkansas and the University of Florida, and prior to joining academia, spent 10 years as a civil engineering consultant on projects involving roadway design, flood control, construction management, forensic engineering, and civil infrastructure improvements.

CARTEEH Assistant Director, Administration
Marcia Walker, CRA