Abstract

As urban populations continue to increase in the U.S. and globally, there is growing concern

about the impact of urban environmental determinants on population health, ranging from traditional pollutants to emergent issues such as natural disasters. This talk will focus on modern exposure science approaches to characterize exposures to air pollution, extreme weather, and green space as well as to incorporate them in health research to understand potential biological mechanisms. These approaches include engineering methods, advanced statistical models, GIS, and machine learning methods. The approaches highlighted throughout the talk are applicable to environmental engineering, transportation, civil engineering, epidemiology, risk assessment and public health.

Bio

Kai Zhang, MS, MA, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Population and Community Health at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. Dr. Zhang received a PhD degree in Environmental Health and a MA degree in Statistics at the University of Michigan, and a MS degree and a BS degree in Environmental Engineering from Tsinghua and Southeast University in China, respectively. Dr. Zhang’s research interest focuses on characterizing climate-related exposures, reducing the human health effects associated with disasters, and exploring the role of social and environmental stressors (air pollution, natural environment, built environment, and green space) in relation to chronic diseases. Dr. Zhang serves as the Secretary of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES). He is also an Associate Editor for Science of the Total Environment and the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. His research has been featured in prestigious international journals, including Nature Medicine, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communication, Science Advances, Circulation, Circulation Research, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Environmental Health Perspectives, and Environmental Science & Technology, among others.

Northwestern University Transportation Center Hagestad Sandhouse Rail Group presents:

The Chicago Region and Beyond 2026 Commuter Railroad Update

JAMES (JIM) DERWINSKI

Chief Executive Officer

METRA

DAVE DECH

President/General Manager

South Shore Line

When: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 @ 12:00pm / Noon CT

Where: Metra Board Room, Metra Headquarters - 13th Floor
547 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60661 (SW corner of Clinton & Jackson)

The presentation will be held in the Metra Board of Director’s Room, 13th Floor, 547 W. Jackson Boulevard in Chicago. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Presentations begin at Noon. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation. Wrap-up is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Please bring your own lunch. Water and soft drinks will be provided.

FOR SECURITY AND ADMITTANCE PURPOSES PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE. THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR THIS EVENT
Advance Registration Required - A government issued ID required to gain access to Metra Headquarters

LINK
Remote attendance also available (please register at the link above)

Speaker Bios:

James M. “Jim” Derwinski was named CEO/Executive Director of Metra in August 2017. In that role, he provides overall leadership and direction to all areas of Metra operations and administration to ensure that Metra achieves its vision, mission, goals, and objectives. Financial responsibility includes oversight of Metra’s budget, which totals more than $1 billion for operations and capital.

Mr. Derwinski had a long career in Metra’s Mechanical Department, culminating with his appointment as Chief Mechanical Officer, responsible for the repair, inspection, cleaning, and maintenance of nearly 1,200 railcars and locomotives. He was also in charge of Metra’s in-house railcar and locomotive rehabilitation programs, a contract for locomotive remanufacturing and the installation of Positive Train Control on cab cars and engines.

After a six-year stint in the U.S. Navy as an electrician on nuclear submarines, Mr. Derwinski began his railroad career as a locomotive electrician with the Chicago & North Western Railroad in 1993. He joined Metra as an electrician in 1997 and steadily rose through the ranks serving as a foreman, general foreman, shop superintendent, director of systems maintenance, locomotive superintendent, Rock Island division director and Milwaukee division director and then senior director of mechanical operations. He was named Chief Mechanical Officer in September 2013.

Dave Dech is the President of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), bringing more than 30 years of experience in passenger and freight rail leadership. He previously served as Executive Director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, where he oversaw Tri Rail operations, delivered record ridership, and launched the Miami Link service into downtown Miami.

Before SFRTA, Dech was Vice President of Rail Operations for Capital Metro in Austin, leading major infrastructure projects, doubling freight throughput, and achieving 97% on time performance. His earlier career at CSX Transportation spanned more than two decades, progressing from locomotive engineer to senior executive roles overseeing passenger operations, major public private partnerships, and some of the railroad’s largest operating divisions.

Known for his collaborative leadership style and operational expertise, Dech has held national roles including Vice Chair of the Commuter Rail Coalition. He is a graduate of the Harvard Executive Leadership Program and has dedicated his career to advancing safe, reliable, and customer focused rail service. He and his wife of 30 years are the proud parents of four sons.

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Abstract:

This talk summarizes recent rapid progress in integrating machine learning techniques with cloud computing and automation in the context of mixed-autonomy (i.e. contexts in which humans interact with machines). The results are developed in the context of traffic automation. We present a new platform in which a cloud-based system broadcasts high-level “speed plans” (generated through optimal control and neural approximations of hyperbolic partial differential equations) via lossy communication channels such as the cellular network to a fleet of vehicles with a given level of automation. The vehicles, using their local automation stack, run deep reinforcement learning algorithms collaboratively to control surrounding traffic. The algorithms and the platform are designed to smooth “stop-and-go” waves on freeways, which are a significant cause of energy waste and accidents. Results from a large-scale experiment involving 100 automated vehicles are presented, in which Nissan, Toyota, and GM vehicles collectively run the algorithms on the I-24 freeway in Nashville, TN, demonstrating up to a 10% improvement in overall energy consumption.

BIO

Alexandre Bayen is the Founding Associate Provost for the Berkeley Space Center, the Director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute, and the Liao-Cho Professor of Engineering at UC Berkeley. He is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science(link is external), and Civil and Environmental Engineering(link is external). From 2014 - 2021, he served as the Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies(link is external) at UC Berkeley (ITS). He is also a Faculty Scientist in Mechanical Engineering, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(link is external) (LBNL).

He received the Engineering Degree in applied mathematics from the Ecole Polytechnique, France, in 1998, the M.S. and Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in 1999 and 2004, respectively. He was a Visiting Researcher at NASA Ames Research Center from 2000 to 2003. Between January 2004 and December 2004, he worked as the Research Director of the Autonomous Navigation Laboratory at the Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aerodynamiques, (Ministere de la Defense, Vernon, France), where he holds the rank of Major. He has been on the faculty at UC Berkeley since 2005. Bayen has authored two books and over 200 articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He is the recipient of the Ballhaus Award from Stanford University, 2004, of the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, 2009 and he is a NASA Top 10 Innovators on Water Sustainability, 2010. His projects Mobile Century and Mobile Millennium received the 2008 Best of ITS Award for ‘Best Innovative Practice’, at the ITS World Congress and a TRANNY Award from the California Transportation Foundation, 2009. Mobile Millennium has been featured more than 200 times in the media, including TV channels and radio stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNET, NPR, KGO, the BBC), and in the popular press (Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times). Bayen is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) award from the White House, 2010. He is also the recipient of the Okawa Research Grant Award, the Ruberti Prize from the IEEE, and the Huber Prize from the ASCE.

TBD