Spring Break Ends

Spring Classes begin 8 a.m. (Northwestern Monday: Classes scheduled to meet on Mondays meet on this day)

Join leaders from the Northwestern Personal Development StudioLab for a presentation about the new Curious Life Certificate (CLC), a series of courses designed to give you a holistic approach to your performance both academically and in your personal life.

Professors Bruce Ankenman and Joe Holtgreive will discuss the CLC curriculum and eligibility requirements to enroll in the program, which will launch in fall 2023. All students must take CLC’s pre-requisite course, PRDV 200: PATH, before joining the program. Those wishing to start the certificate program in the fall can still enroll in PRDV 200: PATH in spring quarter 2023.

The information sessions will be held in-person with the option to attend via Zoom.

Free pizza provided

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Join leaders from the Northwestern Personal Development StudioLab for a presentation about the new Curious Life Certificate (CLC), a series of courses designed to give you a holistic approach to your performance both academically and in your personal life.

Professors Bruce Ankenman and Joe Holtgreive will discuss the CLC curriculum and eligibility requirements to enroll in the program, which will launch in fall 2023. All students must take CLC’s pre-requisite course, PRDV 200: PATH, before joining the program. Those wishing to start the certificate program in the fall can still enroll in PRDV 200: PATH in spring quarter 2023.

The information sessions will be held in-person with the option to attend via Zoom.

Free pizza provided

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Register Now

Northwestern University Transportation Center presents:

Traffic Flow as a Simple Fluid: Towards a Scaling Theory of Urban Congestion

Dr. Jorge Laval

Professor

Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract:

The analogy between the theory of phase transitions in simple fluids and vehicular traffic flow has long been suspected, promising a new level of understanding of urban congestion by standing on one of the firmer foundations in physics. The obstacle has been the interpretation of the thermal energy of the gas-particle system, which remains unknown. This talk proposes the flow of cars through the network as a viable interpretation, where the fundamental diagram for traffic flow would be analogous to the coexistence curve in gas-liquid phase transitions.

Thanks to the power-law form of the coexistence curve, it was possible to formalize that the resulting network traffic model belongs to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality class in statistical mechanics. The scaling relationships arising in this universality class are found to be consistent with West's scaling theory for cities. It is shown that congestion costs (delays + fuel consumption) scale superlinearly with city population, possibly and worryingly more so than predicted by West's theory. Implications for sustainability and resiliency are discussed.

Bio:

Jorge Laval is a Professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2006. After obtaining his B.S. in Civil and Industrial Engineering from Universidad Catolica de Chile in 1995, Dr. Laval worked as a transportation engineer for 5 years at the Chilean Ministry of Public Works in Santiago, Chile. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Laval held two consecutive one-year postdoctoral positions at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley, and at the French National Institute for Safety and Transportation Research (INRETS/ENTPE). Professor Laval's main research thrust is in the area of traffic flow theory, modeling and simulation, focusing in understanding congestion in urban networks and how to manage it. He has made important contributions towards understanding the capacity of freeways, the connection between driver behavior and stop-and-go waves, freeway ramp-metering strategies, dynamic traffic assignment, congestion pricing and machine learning models for congestion control.

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Introducing a new joint Executive Education series created by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and McCormick School of Engineering designed to help law firm leaders, lawyers, and other legal professionals understand and make the most of the computational technologies that are transforming the delivery of legal services.

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41st Annual William A. Patterson Transportation Lecture
Featuring Doug Waggoner, Echo Global Logistics

WHEN: April 26, 2023 @ 7:30PM
WHERE: Walter Atheltics Center Auditorium - 2255 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208

SPEAKER:

Doug Waggoner has served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Echo Global Logistics since 2006 and has contributed to making Echo a leading provider of technology-enabled transportation management. Prior to Echo, he founded SelecTrans, LLC, a freight management software provider. From 2004 to 2005, he served as the CEO of USF Bestway. Prior to this, he was the senior vice president of strategic marketing for USF Corporation. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Supply-Chain Innovation Network of Chicago, a new organization emerging out of World Business Chicago’s Plan for Economic Growth and Jobs. Waggoner holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from San Diego State University.

LECTURE HISTORY:

The Annual William A. Patterson Distinguished Transportation Lecture is named for William A. "Pat" Patterson. In 1980, the NUTC established the Lecture as an integral part of the Patterson Endowment. It has since become an annual highlight at Northwestern University, drawing influential speakers from all facets of the transportation industry.

William A. "Pat" Patterson was a central figure in the United States air transport industry for more than four decades. He served as president and chairman of United Airlines from 1934 until his retirement in 1966. He was a life trustee of Northwestern University and was instrumental in the establishment and strategic leadership of the Transportation Center.

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No classes - Memorial Day

Spring classes end

McCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master’s Degree Recognition Ceremony

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