Study Committee Biographical Information
Joseph L. Schofer, Chair, is Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Civil Engineering and Transportation at Northwestern University. Throughout his career, he has been interested in evaluation and decision making for transportation systems. He has undertaken exploratory and conceptual research to define and understand the relationships among people, their behavior, and transportation system characteristics and operations. He has also investigated methods and applications for supporting infrastructure policy and action decisions. His current research addresses the implementation of variable speed limits, the development of tools to predict vehicle requirements for delivering demand-responsive transportation services, the economic impact of business aviation, and the assessment of bus signal preemption schemes. He serves on the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Advisory Committee for the Travel Model Improvement Program. He holds a B.E. from Yale University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University, all in civil engineering.
Thomas B. Deen (NAE) is a transportation consultant and former Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a position he held from 1980 to 1994. He is former Chairman and President of PRC-Voorhees, a transportation engineering and planning consulting firm with clients worldwide. His research interests include intermodal planning of urban transportation systems, integration of transportation and land use in urban areas, and intelligent transportation systems. He has served on a number of National Research Council (NRC) committees and is active in the Institute of Transportation Engineers and other transportation engineering organizations. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Kentucky.
William F. Eddy is Professor of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. His research interests include the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data. He has published widely on the topics of statistical computation and statistical graphics, especially dynamic graphics. He was a founding editor of Chance magazine and of the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. He is a former Chairman of the NRC Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics and has served on a number of other NRC committees, including the Committee on National Statistics and the Panel on Statistical Programs and Practices of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. He holds an A.B. degree from Princeton University, and M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University.
T. Keith Lawton is Director of Technical Services with the Planning Department of Metro, the metropolitan planning organization for the Portland, Oregon, region. He is currently developing a new-paradigm model of travel demand that replaces trip generation with daily activity pattern generation. A prototype of this model is being used in a congestion pricing study. He is also working with Los Alamos National Laboratories on the development and implementation of the second demonstration of operating capability of the TRANSIMS microsimulation model in the Portland region, as part of USDOT’s Transportation Model Improvement Program. He chaired the TRB Committee on Passenger Travel Demand Forecasting for 6 years and was a member of the NRC Committee for the Evaluation of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Natal, South Africa, and an M.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Duke University.
James M. Lepkowski is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, where he works as a sampling statistician developing new survey sampling methods and applying them to diverse problems. His current research focuses on telephone sampling methods, methods to compensate for missing survey data, and methods to analyze survey data that take account of the complexity of the survey sample design. He has served on a variety of national and international advisory committees on survey research methods for or-
ganizations such as the National Center for Health Statistics, the Food and Drug Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the World Health Organization. He holds a B.S. in mathematics from Illinois State University, and M.P.H. and Ph.D. degrees in biostatistics from the University of Michigan.
Arnim H. Meyburg is Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, where he has been a faculty member for more than 30 years. He is also Director of the Transportation Infrastructure Research Consortium of the New York State Department of Transportation, a position he has held since 1995. His research interests include the development and use of models for planning passenger and freight movements; improved methods for surveying travel behavior intended for the development of travel behavior models; and the economics of transportation regulations, infrastructure, and systems management. His work on travel survey methods addresses the need for reliable information to develop better models and implementation of the fundamental principles of sampling in empirical surveys of human populations. He is Chair of the NRC Committee on Freight Transportation Data: A Framework for Development. He holds a B.A. (equivalent) from the Free University of Berlin, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Northwestern University.
Debbie A. Niemeier is Professor and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Davis, and Director of the UC Davis–Caltrans Air Quality Project. Her research interests include air quality and land use, and travel demand modeling, and she has published extensively in these areas. She serves on the TRB Committee on Passenger Travel Demand Forecasting. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association. She holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas; a master’s degree in civil engineering with a minor in geographic information systems from the University of Maine; and a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering, with a minor in statistics, from the University of Washington.
Alan E. Pisarski is a consultant in private practice. His specialties include travel behavior and statistics, transportation policy, and tourism. During the last 30 years, he has participated in all the major policy planning efforts by USDOT. He has also served on the United Nations (UN) Group of Experts on Transport Statistics and, more recently, supported the UN World Tourism Organization in assessing and expanding national travel statistical measurement. He currently is Chairman of the TRB Committee on National Transportation Data Requirements and has chaired or cochaired a number of other TRB committees, including the Steering Committee for the Conference on Information Needs to Support State and Local Transportation Decision Making into the 21st Century. He chaired the recent joint task force of TRB, the Federal Highway Administration, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials that examined long-term transportation policy research needs. He holds a B.A. in sociology and economics from the City University of New York.
Stanley Presser is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he teaches in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology. He is interested in the interface between social psychology and survey measurement, and his research focuses on questionnaire design and testing, the accuracy of survey responses, and ethical issues stemming from the use of human subjects. He has served as Editor of Public Opinion Quarterly, is a former President of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association. His published books include Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys, Survey Questions, and Survey Research Methods. He holds an A.B. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, both in sociology.
G. Scott Rutherford is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington. His previous positions include Director of Research for the Washington State Department of Transportation and Director of the Washington State Transportation Center; he also has several years of industry and consulting experience. His research interests include transit planning, transportation planning and policy, travel
forecasting, and travel demand management. He has served on several TRB committees and currently is Chairman of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program Project Panel on Consideration of Environmental Factors in Transportation. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Washington State University and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, all in civil engineering.
Edward J. Spar is Executive Director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, where his major role is to encourage the development and dissemination of high-quality federal statistics. He conducts regular meetings and colloquia for users and producers of federal statistics to disseminate information about federal statistical developments and discuss user needs. He has consulted for national and international organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Census Bureau, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, on marketing issues and ways of matching data produced by federal statistical agencies with the needs of public- and private-sector users. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in statistics from the City College of New York.
Ronald W. Tweedie retired in 2001 from the New York State Department of Transportation, where his positions included Director of the Planning Bureau and Director of the Data Services Bureau. He was responsible for the development and direction of the state’s comprehensive transportation planning program and for the coordination of program activities with other state agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, the federal government, and local jurisdictions. He also directed the activities of staff providing transportation data and analysis services essential to developing capital projects, setting priorities, and allocating funds in accordance with state procedures. He is Chair of the TRB Committee on Statewide Transportation Data and Information Systems and has served on a number of other committees, including the Federal Highway Administration Advisory Committee on Highway Statistics. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.P.A. from the State University of New York at Albany.
