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Transportation Researchers

Check out our faculty explorer to see how MIT's academic staff fit in to the overall transportation research effort, or scroll through the full list of transportation researchers below. 

Jim Aloisi

Lecturer of Transportation Policy and Planning

Research Interests:

Urban Transportation, Equity, Public Realm Design, Public Transportation Funding and Service Delivery

Cynthia Barnhart

Provost, MIT

Research Interests:

Large-scale optimization, Airlines operations, Transportation operations, planning, and control

Hamsa Balakrishnan

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Design, Analysis, and Implementation of Control and Optimization Algorithms for Large-Scale Cyber-Physical Infrastructures

Steven Barrett

Director, Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment

Research Interests:

Climate Impacts of Aviation, Aircraft Emissions, Biofuels, Electric Aircraft Design, Low Emission and Noise Aircraft Propulsion

Joseph F. Coughlin


Director, MIT AgeLab

Research Interests:

Consumer Behavior, Behavioral Science, Global Demographics

Charlie Fine

Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management

Research Interests:

Operations Strategy, Supply Chain Management, Value Chain Roadmapping, Outsourcing Dynamics

Robert Freund

Theresa Seley Professor in Management Science at the Sloan School of Management at MIT

Research Interests:

Continuous Optimization, Computational Complexity, Convexity, Computational Science, Mathematical Systems

Dan Hastings

Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor and Head, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Space propulsion, space policy, space systems, spacecraft manufacturing processes, space system architecting

Jonathan How

Richard Cockburn Maclaurin Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Robust Control, Adaptive Control, Model Predictive Control, Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning

Jason Jackson

Ford Career Development Assistant Professor of Political Economy

Research Interests:

Community Development, Economic Development, Law and Policy, Machine Learning, Transportation and Mobility

Sertac Karaman

Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Foundations of Mobility

Kent Larson

Principal Research Scientist

Research Interests:

Advanced Simulation and Augmented Reality for Urban Design, Mobility-on-Demand Systems

Amedeo Odoni

T. Wilson Chair Professor Emeritus of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Operations Research, Stochastic Systems, Air Transportation, Urban Services

Georgia Perakis

William F. Pounds Professor of Management, EMBA Faculty Director, Operations Research Center Co-Director

Research Interests:

Operations Management, Management Science, Pricing, Revenue Management, Supply Chains, Machine Learning, Optimization

Daniel Roos

Japan Steel Industry Professor, Emeritus, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research Interests:

Technology and policy, Transportation systems, Industry studies, Information systems

Saurabh Amin

Robert N. Noyce Career Development Associate Professor

Research Interests:

Control of Infrastructure Networks, Security of Cyber-Physical Systems, Applied Game Theory and Information Economics

Dimitris Bertsimas

Professor of Management and Operations Research, Associate Dean of Business Analytics

Research Interests:

Optimization, Stochastic Systems, Machine Learning, Robust Optimization, Transportation and Finance

Hari Balakrishnan

Fujitsu Chair Professor in the EECS Department

Research Interests:

Networking, Data Management, Sensing, Mobile and Sensor Computing, Wireless Networks, Overlay and P2P Networks

Anantha P. Chandrakasan

Dean of the MIT School of Engineering

Research Interests:

Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Luca Carlone

Leonardo Career Development Associate Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Perception and Vision

Daniel Freund

Assistant Professor of Operations Management

Research Interests:

Analytics, Combinatorial Optimization, Management Science, Operations Management, Sharing Economy

Bill Green

Hoyt C. Hottel Professor in Chemical Engineering

Research Interests:

Fuel Chemistry, Evaluation of Alternative Fuels & Engines

Dan Huttenlocher

Dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Research Interests:

AI, computer vision, social network analysis

Song Han

Assistant Professor at MIT’s EECS

Research Interests:

TinyML, enable deep learning on mobile devices, efficient algorithms and hardware for computation-intensive AI applications

Patrick Jaillet

Dugald C. Jackson Professor in EECS, Co-Director of the Operations Research Center

Research Interests:

Online Optimization and Learning, Machine Learning, Decision Making Under Uncertainty

Valerie Karplus

Assistant Professor of Global Economics and Management

Research Interests:

Biotechnology, Climate Change, Economic Modeling, Economic Development, Energy, Globalization, Sustainability

David Mindell

Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Autonomy in Human Environments; Precision Navigation; Ultra-Wideband for Urban Transit

Asu Ozdaglar

Distinguished Professor and Department Head, EECS; Deputy Dean of Academics, Schwarzman College of Computing

Research Interests:

Nonlinear and Convex Optimization: Theory and Algorithms; Game Theory;
Social and Economic Networks

Sandy Pentland

Toshiba Professor of Media Arts & Science

Research Interests:

Computational Social Science, Organizational Engineering, Wearable Computing, Image Understanding

Daniela Rus

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Research Interests:

Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science

John Attanucci

Lecturer, Research Associate and Manager of the MIT Transit Research Program

Research Interests:

Transportation Planning, Transit Management and Operations, Transit Information and Decision Support Systems

Eran Ben-Joseph

Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning

Research Interests:

Environmental Planning and Management, Healthy Communities and Active Living, Transportation and Mobility, Urban Design

Moshe Ben-Akiva

Edmund K. Turner Professor in Civil Engineering

Research Interests:

Transportation Systems Analysis, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Demand Modeling, Econometrics

Bruce Cameron

Director, MIT System Architecture Group

Research Interests:

Autonomous Vehicles, Industry Platforms

Fábio Duarte

Principal Research Scientist and Lecturer of Transportation Policy and Planning

Research Interests:

Urban Technologies, Transportation and Planning, Social Construction of Technologies

Joseph Ferreira

Professor of Urban Studies & Planning

Research Interests:

Transportation and Mobility, Urban Information, Technology, and Media and Analytics

Jarrod Goentzel

Director, MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab and Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

Research Interests:

Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Distribution Network Design, Emergency Management, International Development, Public Policy

John Hansman

T. Wilson (1953) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Air Transportation, Instrumentation, Flight Safety, Flight Information Systems, Air Traffic Control

Alexandre Jacquillat

Assistant Professor, Operations Research and Statistics

Research Interests:

Stochastic optimization, data-driven decision-making, analytics, vehicle routing, transportation scheduling

Chris Knittel

George P. Shultz Professor of Applied Economics

Research Interests:

Economics, Finance and Accounting

Jing Li

William Barton Rogers Career Development Professor of Energy Economics

Research Interests:

Industrial Organization, Environmental & Energy Economics

Thomas Magnanti

Institute Professor & Professor of Operations Research

Research Interests:

Operations Research and Statistics, Management Science

Carolina Osorio

Visiting Associate Professor

Research Interests:

Operations Research, Network Design, Traffic Management

Sergey Paltsev

Deputy Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

Research Interests:

Energy Transition, Policy Scenarios, Climate Policy, Regional Analysis

Nick Roy

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Research Interests:

Robotics, Machine Learning, Autonomous Systems, Planning and Reasoning, Human-Computer Interaction, Micro Air Vehicles

Bill Aulet

Professor, Sloan School; Managing Director, Martin Trust Center, MIT

Research Interests:

Entrepreneurship Education, Economics & Business

George Barbastathis

Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Research Interests:

Information Optics, Digital Holography, Subwavelength Optical Engineering

Peter Belobaba

Principal Research Scientist

Research Interests:

Air Transportation Economics and Operations Analysis, Airline Pricing and Revenue Management

Chris Caplice

Executive Director, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

Research Interests:

Freight Transportation, Supply Chain

Olivier de Weck

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems

Research Interests:

Aerospace Systems, Engineering Systems, Technology Development, Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Randall Field

Executive Director, MIT Energy Initiative’s Mobility Systems Center

Research Interests:

Decarbonization of Transportation, Energy Efficiency in Mobility, Low-Carbon Technologies, Energy Systems Integration

Stephen Graves

Abraham J. Siegel Professor of Management and Professor of Operations Management

Research Interests:

Design and Planning of Manufacturing Systems and Supply Chains, Supply-Chain Optimization

John Heywood

Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Research Interests:

Energy and transportation interface, Internal combustion engines, Transportation fuels

Ali Jadbabaie

JR East Professor of Engineering

Research Interests:

Network Science, Decision Theory, Cooperative Control Of Multi-Agent Systems, Optimal Control, Motion Coordination

David Keith

Assistant Professor, System Dynamics

Research Interests:

Autonomous Vehicle, Supply Chain Management, Energy Consumption

John Leonard

Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering

Research Interests:

AI & Machine Learning, Graphics & Vision, Robotics, Big Data and Transportation

Jelena Notaros

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Research Interests:

Silicon Photonics for LiDAR Sensing, AR Displays, Optical Communications, Quantum Engineering, and Biophotonics

James B. Orlin

E. Pennell Brooks (1917) Professor in Management

Research Interests:

Network, Combinatorial Optimization

Carlo Ratti

Professor of Urban Technologies and Planning, SENSEable City Lab Director

Research Interests:

Education, Transportation and Mobility, Urban Information, Technology, and Media and Analytics

Elisabeth Reynolds

Lecturer, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Research Interests:

National and Regional Systems of Innovation, Competitiveness, Manufacturing Ecosystems

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