The Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS) announced its Faculty Fellows for the 2015-16 academic year and Dr. Kumares Sinha will be joining the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering.
Sinha is an expert on highway infrastructure systems engineering and he will be involved with the department’s transportation group. His research also overlaps with the construction engineering and management group. Sinha will collaborate with Dr. Mark Burris in the area of transportation economics, specifically exploring some of the economic issues surrounding connected and automated vehicles and how changes in the cost of travel, along with other attributes, will impact their market penetration and driver behavior.
Sinha will provide additional coordination between the department and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) to expand research opportunities. TTI and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station recently announced funding for the Center for Infrastructure Renewal and Sinha’s focus is on infrastructure investment.
The Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University, Sinha is recognized for his development of an integrated approach to managing highway systems and groundbreaking research on pavement and bridge performance, life cycle costing, and road safety. Sinha is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
TIAS is a mechanism for attracting world-class talent to Texas A&M and is driven by nominations of National Academy and Nobel-prize caliber researchers that align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university. The goal is to provide a stellar environment for research and scholarship with the Faculty Fellows having freedom to pursue their own research interests, as well as collaborate in disciplinary and multidisciplinary research.