January 17, 2012
Adib Kanafani, Professor of the Graduate School in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a former director of ITS, will receive the Transportation Research Board’s W.N. Carey, Jr. Distinguished Service Award for 2011. The Carey Award is one of the two highest honors bestowed by the TRB.
Kanafani will receive the award at the 91st Annual Meeting of the TRB in Washington, D.C. in January. The award recognizes individuals who have given “outstanding leadership and service to transportation research and to the TRB Board.”
Kanafani's association with TRB began in 1975 when he was tapped to draft an aviation agenda for the Highway Research Board, the organization that later became TRB.
"I was fortunate to be put on that special committee just as HRB was changing into TRB and becoming multimodal," he said. "I haven't missed too many annual meetings since then."
In fact, Kanafani was named Chair of the TRB Executive Committee in 2009.
He served as director of ITS for 15 years. He retired earlier this year, but continues to advise Ph.D. students and remains engaged in research.
TRB is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council, which is administered by the National Academies.