Dr. Kaan M.A. Özbay joined the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering and the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) at NYU in August 2013. Since 2017, Professor Ozbay has been the Founding Director of the C2SMART Center (Tier 1 UTC funded by USDOT). He is also a Global Network Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and a Global Network Professor of Engineering and Computer Science at NYU Shanghai (NYUSH). Professor Ozbay was a tenured full Professor at the Rutgers University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He joined Rutgers University as a tenure track Assistant Professor in July 1996. In 2008, he was a visiting scholar at the Operations Research and Financial Engineering (ORFE) Department of Princeton University. Since 1994, Dr. Ozbay has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator of 120 projects funded at a level of more than $30,00,000 by National Science Foundation, NJDOT, NYMTC, NY State DOT, New Jersey Highway Authority, USDOT, FHWA, VDOT, CUNY University Transportation Research Center (UTRC), Department of Homeland Security, USDOT ITS Research Center of Excellence. He was the founding director of the Rutgers Intelligent Transportation Systems (RITS) laboratory.

Research Interests:

• Development of simulation models of large-scale complex transportation systems

• Advanced technology and sensing applications for Intelligent Transportation Systems

• Modeling and evaluation of traffic incident and emergency management systems

• Feedback-based online real-time traffic control techniques

• Traffic safety

• Application of operations research techniques in network optimization and humanitarian inventory control

• Transportation economics.

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Education

• Ph.D.  Civil Engineering (Transportation) - Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia - June 1996.

• M.S.  Civil Engineering (Transportation) - Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia –Sept. 1991.

• B.S.  Civil Engineering - Bogazici University (Robert College), Istanbul, Turkey - June 1988. 

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Profile

• Professor Ozbay authored, co-authored and edited 4 books and more than 400 fully refereed articles in academic journals and conference proceedings.

• Professor Ozbay is the recipient of NSF CAREER Award in 1999 for his proposal titled “Feedback Based Robust On-Line Traffic Control for Intelligent Transportation Systems”.

• Professor Ozbay serves as the “Associate Editor” of Networks and Spatial Economic and Transportmetrica B: Transport Dynamics journals and is a member of the editorial board of the Intelligent Transportation Systems journal. He also served as a member of the Member of the Scientific Committee of the World Conference on Transportation Research Society (WCTRS) between 2005 and 2007.

• Since 1994, Dr. Ozbay, has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator of 120+ research projects funded at a level of more than $35,000,000 by National Science Foundation, NJDOT, NYMTC, NY State DOT, New Jersey Highway Authority, NJ Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Agency (TSA), NY City Office of Emergenc Management, NY-NY-CT-Regional Catastrophic Planning Team, USDOT, FHWA, VDOT, CUNY University Transportation Research Center (UTRC), Rutgers Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), USDOT ITS Research Center of Excellence.

• Professor Ozbay was one of the original contributors of the Rutgers CAIT successful proposal submitted to FHWA and heserved as the “Associate Director of CAIT”.

• He co-authored Virginia Tech CTR's successful bid on FHWA's "IVHS Research Centers for Excellence" with Center's IVHS team. Participated in the preparation of technical and cost proposals. Funding estimated at $8.5 million for five years beginning 10/93.

• At Virginia Tech Center for Transportation Research, he was the project manager and / or co-principal investigator of several projects for a total funding of more than $1,000,000.

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Honors and Awards

• 2020 - Transportation Research Board (TRB) Best Paper Award (Joint Simulation Subcommittee). National Academies, Washington, D.C. Paper Title: Applying Bayesian Optimization for Calibration of Transportation Simulation Models (Sha, D., Ozbay, K., Ding, Y.)

• 2017 - Franz Edelman Finalist Award for Achievement in Operations Research and Management Science for our research on "Off-Hour Deliveries in NYC". Franz Edelman. Award is one of the most prestigious awards given by the Operations Research Society, INFORMS.

• 2015 - TRB Best Paper Award (Urban Freight Committee), Paper Title: “Modeling the Safety Impacts of Off-Hour Delivery Programs in Urban Areas.” (Xie*, K., Ozbay, K., Yang*, K., Holguín-Veras, J., and Morgul, E.F.)

• 2014 - IBM Faculty Award

• 2014 - Elected Member of the Board of Directors of “Intelligent Transportation Society and New Jersey (former Committee on Smart New Jersey)” 1/2013-1/2014.

• 2013 - High Value Research Award by the AASHTO Research Advisory Committee (RAC) with H. Nassif of Rutgers University. Project: “Elimination of Weight Restriction on Amtrak, NJ Transit, and Conrail Lines” (Co-PI).

• 2013 - NJDOT 5th Annual Implementation Award, project titled “Elimination of Weight Restriction on Amtrak, NJ Transit, and Conrail Line” (Co-PI with H. Nassif of Rutgers University”).

• 2012 - NJDOT Best Research Poster Award, “Data-Driven Intelligent Transportation Systems.

• 2011 - Outstanding ITS Project of the Year, Freight Management Intelligent Transportation Systems of New York, project titled “Integrative Freight Management in the New York City metropolitan area, (Team members: RPI, ALK Associates, Rutgers University, NYU, NYCDOT).

• 2010 - NJDOT Third Annual Implementation Award, for the research project titled “Economic Impacts of Transportation Projects (PIs: J. Seneca & K. Ozbay)”.

• 2009 - Best Paper Award (TRB Traffic Flow Committee - Joint Simulation Subcommittee). (Lee, J and Ozbay, K., “A New Calibration Methodology for Microscopic Traffic Simulation Using Enhanced Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (ESPSA) Approach”).

• Member of the Board of Directors of the University Transportation Research Center (UTRC) at the City University of New York – USDOT’s Region 2 University Transportation Center, 2012-Present.

• 2009 - Second Annual Implementation Award, for the project titled “Manual of Guidelines for Lane Closures (PI: Kaan Ozbay)”.

• 2000 - Rutgers School of Engineering Faculty Achievement Award.

• 1999 - Runner-up, ASCE CERF Career Development Award.

• 1999 - NSF CAREER Award: “Feedback Based Robust On-Line Traffic Control for Intelligent Transportation Systems."

• Eight Time Recipient of Rutgers University Faculty Academic Service Increment Award, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004. 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009.

• 1999 - Elected to the Board of the Committee on Smart New Jersey (CSNJ).

• 1994 - Eno Fellowship Award.