Michigan Tech is going to be one of seven universities participating in a national rail transportation consortium headed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The new consortium, NURail, is funded by a $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which is making a mission out of researching the critical transportation challenges facing the U.S., including its rail systems. Other grants are funding nine other university-based transportation research centers nationwide.
Tech was chosen because of its Rail Transportation Program, says David Reed, VP for research at Tech. It will be headed at Tech by four faculty members: Pasi Lautala, director of the Rail Transportation Program and a research assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering; Devin Harris, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering; Paul Sanders, assistant professor of materials science and engineering; and John Hill, assistant professor of mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics.
"Michigan Tech's Rail Transportation Program has developed under Dr. Lautala's leadership into a preeminent university rail research and education program," says Reed. "Its education programs have been strongly supported by the rail industry. NURail builds on this work and related efforts at other institutions in a national center joining university, industry and state governments to further develop rail transportation in the United States."
The other members are MIT, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Kentucky and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. In collaboration with state transportation departments and industry partners, Tech will contribute research on rural freight rail and multimodal transportation improvements, human factors and rail safety, infrastructure evaluation and assessment, high performance materials for railroad infrastructure preservation, and renewal and improved materials for rail industry.
The university also will establish a rail transportation and engineering certificate program for students, and commit to increasing undergraduate rail design projects and summer internships.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: David Reed, Michigan Technological University
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