On July 15th, our dear colleague, Hani Mahmassani, passed away. Hani was the William A. Patterson Distinguished Chair in Transportation at Northwestern University, director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC), and professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Hani earned a BS in civil engineering from the University of Houston, a MS in civil engineering from Purdue University, and a PhD in transportation systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Hani began his career at the University of Texas at Austin and then moved to the University of Maryland. He joined Northwestern University in 2007 to lead the Transportation Center. While he may be most well-known for his work on intelligent transportation networks and dynamic network modeling, Hani's research fundamentally advanced many areas of transportation science and logistics, including dynamic vehicle routing, travel behavior, decision theory, traffic flow theory, and logistics systems design. It is notable how forward-looking his work was over the span of his career. Hani's research provided insights into how transportation networks would be impacted by emerging technologies. In the 1990s, his seminal work developing DYNASMART, a dynamic network assignment simulation model, advanced our understanding of how advanced traffic information systems would impact traffic flow. His more recent work examines how autonomous vehicles will impact traffic flow.
In 2021, Mahmassani was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, with a citation for "contributions to modeling of intelligent transportation networks and to interdisciplinary collaboration in transportation engineering." He truly was a bridge across research communities. In 2023, he received the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science from TSL and was part of the 2024 class of INFORMS Fellows. Hani was recognized with numerous other awards for his work and was a prolific and frequently cited author.
As director of the NUTC, Hani led an interdisciplinary education and research institution serving industry, government, and the public. The center has more than 50 faculty affiliates from across Northwestern and maintains connections with government agencies and the private sector, all to improve transportation and logistics for the 21st century. Hani often consulted for both public and private entities, sharing his knowledge with companies and government bodies in the United States and abroad. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he made important contributions by working with industry on new ideas to efficiently move products through a squeezed supply chain.
Fluent in Arabic, French, and English, Hani communicated complex ideas to a wide audience. Amid transportation-, supply-chain, or logistics-related news stories, he was a sought-out voice. His communication skills were sharpened in the classroom, where he taught students to be adaptable and resilient, and to confidently solve problems by being aware of their surroundings and addressing timely issues using the core knowledge and toolset that a Northwestern education provides.
Hani was always generous with his time and energy when it came to organizing events and programs for his research communities. He held a number of leadership positions within the TSL Society and its precursor, the TSL Section, including President, Vice-President/President-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, and Newsletter Editor. He also served on many TSL prize committees. From 2003–2008, Hani served as Editor-in-chief of Transportation Science, the flagship journal of the TSL Society. Hani served as General Chair of the 2008 INFORMS Annual Meeting. Hani worked hard (over famously late hours) so his expertise could positively affect as many people as possible.
Hani was a wonderful colleague, collaborator, mentor, and friend to so many in the INFORMS community. He pushed us to do transportation research that mattered. He was a giant in our field, and he will be so missed. Our hearts go out to all his academic colleagues, friends, and family, particularly his sons, Amine and Ziad, and his brothers, Ghaleb, Maher and Malek.
Pablo Durango-Cohen, Bret Johnson, Marco Nie, Joseph Schofer, Karen Smilowitz, and Amanda Stathopoulos
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Karen Smilowitz
James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences & Operations Department, Kellogg, Northwestern University
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