Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, has appointed Dr. Mark Burris holder of the Herbert D. Kelleher Professorship in the Dwight Look College of Engineering. The endowed professorship appointment is effective June 1.
Burris, who is a professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, joined the Texas A&M faculty in August 2001. Burris also serves as the associate department head for research and operations. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of South Florida, a master’s degree from the University of New Brunswick and a bachelor’s degree from Technical University of Nova Scotia.
Burris’ main area of interest is traveler behavior in response to pricing, particularly congestion (or value) pricing. He is involved in many projects in this area and has published extensively in this area of research. He has served in an evaluation and monitoring role for projects around the country, including the Houston Value Pricing Project and the Lee County Variable Pricing Pilot Project. He has also lead many studies and surveys on how travelers will react to innovative tolling projects and the costs and benefits associated with those projects.
His research has provided a better understanding of traveler behavior in response to tolls and helped to improve our ability to predict this reaction. Due to his experience in this area he was asked to serve on the NCHRP panel overseeing a research project on “Estimating Toll Road Demand and Revenue” was invited by the FHWA to attend an “Expert Forum on Road Pricing and Modeling” and is currently serving on an expert panel for the FHWA’s “Benefit/Cost Methods for Operations Planning” project. He is the chair of TRB’s Transportation Economics committee, a friend of TRB’s Congestion Pricing committee and a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Prior to joining Texas A&M he was a senior research associate at the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) in Tampa, Florida.