Professor José Holguín-Veras is named the William Howard Hart Professor.

The William Howard Hart Professor of Rational and Technical Mechanics (1883) Endowed Chair was the first endowed chair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is one of the highest honors bestowed on a Rensselaer faculty member.

"The year 1883 is made memorable by the endowment of the chair of rational and technical mechanics; the first to be endowed. Sixty thousand dollars [$1.33 million  in 2009 dollars] was given for this purpose by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Hart, as a memorial to her husband, with the condition that the chair should be designated the William Howard Hart Professorship of Rational and Technical Mechanics. The communication to the board of trustees offering the endowment was dated June 11, 1883. Mr. Hart was the son of Richard P. Hart, who had been a trustee of the school in its earlier days (1825-43)."
    - History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institure, 1824-1934, 3rd Edition by
      Palmer C. Ricketts (Ninth President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment

The Center for Infrastructure, Transportation, and the Environment (CITE)'s vision is to become a national and international leader in research, education, outreach, and technology transfer in the areas of infrastructure, transportation, and their linkages to the environment. In achieving this vision, CITE will emphasize the use of multidisciplinary approaches, as they provide the only way avenue to deal with the complexity of the challenges faced by mankind at this particular moment in history. To this effect, CITE will work together with engineers, scientists, policy makers, and community leaders to find research-based solutions to relevant problems impacting infrastructure, transportation, and the environment.

CITE is expected to take a proactive role in the respond to the major challenges that shape this period of history. Among them, it is important to highlight:

• The deplorable state of the Nation's infrastructure and the need to create new paradigms of design and operation for sustainable and resilient infrastructure and transportation systems.
• Climate change and its impacts on coastal areas that are increasing their population share.
• The research needs associated with unmanaged urbanization and rise of megacities.
• The anticipated increase in natural and man-made disasters and the need to develop new paradigms of resilient and sustainable infrastructure, and transportation systems.

CITE's work will take advantage of:

• The potential of multidisciplinary approaches to study and solve complex problems.
• The important role played by engineers, scientists, and policy makers towards achieving energy and environmental goals.
• The pervasive role of information technology, sensors, and wireless technologies that can enhance engineering decision making.
• Rensselaer's research platforms (CCNI, EMPAC, and others).
• The availability of outstanding faculty in the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems, Economics, Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering; and Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering.
• The leadership role played and collaborations with leading universities such as Cornell University, New York University, Columbia University, University at Buffalo, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Rutgers University, and many others.

In fulfilling its vision, CITE is expected to be a proactive agent of change that foster high impact basic and applied research, its transition to real life implementation, and the education of the next generation of leaders.

Signature projects:

• "Integrative Freight Demand Management in the New York City Metropolitan Area" (United States Department of Transportation); July, 1 2007 - June 30, 2009; PI: José Holguín-Veras, Professors Satish Ukkusuri, Kaan Ozbay, and Drs. Allison de Cerreno and Alain Kornhauser are Co-PIs; Total budget $1,865,136). This project focuses on designing and testing an innovative freight demand management for the NYC metropolitan area.
• "DRU: Contending with Materiel Convergence: Optimal Control, Coordination, and Delivery of Critical Supplies to the Site of Extreme Events" (National Science Foundation CMMI-0624083); January 2007 - December 2010; PI: José Holguín-Veras, Professors Tricia Wachtendorf and Satish Ukkusuri are Co-PIs; Total budget =$749,298). This project focuses on the development of new paradigms of supply chain modeling integrating social sciences and logistics.
• "Corridor-based transportation management," and "Mobile sensors as traffic probes" (PI Jeff Ban, total $100,000) Use mobile sensors (e.g., cell phones, GPS devices) to probe traffic flow to reconstruct traffic states, to evaluate system performance, to assist in the development of efficient and effective system control and management schemes. Apply system analysis, network modeling, and simulation techniques to study transportation corridor systems to evaluate system performance, identify bottlenecks, develope mitigating strategies, and simulate the improvements.