West Virginia University graduate Frank Goetzke has earned national recognition by being named the Mid Atlantic Universities Transportation Center (MAUTC) Outstanding Student of the Year for 2006.

The WVU alum will receive a $1,000 prize at a January banquet in Washington, D.C.

Goetzke recently received his doctorate in economics from WVU s College of Business and Economics. He conducted his doctoral research in transportation economics as a graduate assistant in the Universitys Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Transportation is inherently an interdisciplinary field,said Goetzke, a native of Germany.Both economics and engineering are important aspects of this area of research.

Transportation has a major impact on many increasingly important aspects of our lives including accessibility, mobility, environment, safety, and security, said David Martinelli, chair of WVU s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Franks research has made a significant contribution to the field,said Martinelli, who also served as chair of Goetzkes dissertation committee.It is always gratifying for our students to do well and to see the next generation of researchers leading the way.

Goetzkes award-winning research focuses on applying economic modeling tools to understand and analyze why people are more likely to choose walking, biking or using public transportation. The research involves finding demand-side network effects at work.

I am honored and humbled by this award,said Goetzke.I wrote the dissertation in WVU s Economics Department, but a large share of my funding came from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

I would like to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. David Martinelli, and all of my other dissertation committee members, especially Dr. Brian Cushing, for their support in this innovative endeavor,he added.

Prior to coming to WVU , Goetzke earned his bachelors degree in political science and biology at the University of Bremen in Germany and his masters degree in energy and environmental analysis at Boston University. He then served for six years as a transportation consultant at WalkBoston, the Central Transportation Planning Staff and Cambridge Systematics.

After completing his doctorate at WVU last spring, Goetzke took a position as an assistant professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where he teaches Urban Economics, Transportation Planning and Environmental Policy.

MAUTC is a consortium of regional universities working together on transportation education and research.