A West Virginia University assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering is the recipient of the 2014 Transportation Research Board’s Fred Burggraf Award.

Avinash Unnikrishnan was recognized for his paper, “Modeling Parking Search on Network Using Stochastic Shortest Paths with History Dependence,” which develops a mathematical model for capturing the parking search for drivers.

“This research is very important for developing models to evaluate parking policies in large urban areas,” said Unnikrishnan. “The work in this paper resulted from a collaborative research project funded by the National Science Foundation, and several faculty members in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources played an important role in helping me with this project through their guidance and advice.”

The award was established in 1966 to encourage young researchers to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field of transportation. It recognizes the best published paper where the lead author is under 35 years of age. It will be presented on January 12, during the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Unnikrishnan received his doctorate in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. He earned his master’s at Vanderbilt University in 2004 and bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in 2002. He is a member of the Transportation and Logistics Society, the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science and the Transportation Research Board.

He received the American Society of Civil Engineers Outstanding Reviewer Award in 2011 and the ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Teaching Fellowship in 2010.

-WVU-

bmd/09/05/14

CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon, Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
304.293.4086, Mary.Dillon@mail.wvu.edu

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