Dr. Pendyala is a globally recognized leader in transportation systems analysis and planning, currently serving as Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering and Director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University (ASU). With a distinguished career spanning more than three decades, Dr. Pendyala has made transformative contributions to multimodal transportation planning, travel demand forecasting, activity-based analysis, and the dynamic modeling of transportation systems.
An accomplished researcher, Dr. Pendyala has served as the lead principal investigator for dozens of research projects for a multitude of sponsors and most recently served as the Director of TOMNET, a Tier-1 University Transportation Center sponsored by the US Department of Transportation from 2016 to 2024. He has authored more than 200 journal and conference papers in prestigious publications and venues. His expertise in travel behavior modeling, survey methods, activity-based analysis, and statistical and econometric methods has influenced transportation policy, planning, and infrastructure development worldwide. He has been invited to present his work at major national and international conferences and has served on expert review panels for the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), the World Bank, and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Pendyala is widely recognized for his contributions and is the recipient of the 2022 Transportation Research Board Pyke Johnson Best Paper Award in Planning and Environment, the 2019 Arizona Pavements and Materials Community Service Award, and the 2017 S.S. Steinberg Award of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
Dr. Pendyala has held leadership positions in some of the most prestigious professional organizations dedicated to advancing transportation research. He has served as Chair of the Planning and Environment Group, Travel Analysis Methods Section, and Traveler Behavior and Values Committee for the Transportation Research Board. He has also served on multiple editorial boards for top-tier journals and led the organization of major national and international conferences. Dr. Pendyala is past Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary-Treasurer of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR).
Before assuming his current leadership role at ASU, Dr. Pendyala held the Frederick R. Dickerson Chair and Professorship in Transportation Systems at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His academic journey includes tenured faculty positions at the University of South Florida and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Dr. Pendyala holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Transportation Systems) from the University of California, Davis, and a B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India.