Hani Mahmassani, William A. Patterson Distinguished Chair in Transportation, director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC), and professor of civil and environmental engineering, has died.
He passed away on 15 July, 2025, at the age of 69, Northwestern - which he joined in 2007 - has announced.
“Transportation is so closely tied to society, to our everyday life in many ways,” Mahmassani said in 2021. “While it is an engineering discipline, on a day-to-day basis we’re intertwined with everything that we humans do.”
His areas of specialisation included multimodal transportation systems, dynamic network modelling and optimisation, transit network planning and design, dynamics of user behaviour and telematics, telecommunication-transportation interactions, large-scale human infrastructure systems, and real-time operation of logistics and distribution systems.
He was recognised with numerous awards for his work and was a "prolific and frequently-cited author", Northwestern said.
Mahmassani earned a bachelor’s of science in civil engineering in 1976 from the University of Houston, a master’s of science in civil engineering in 1978 from Purdue University, and a PhD in transportation systems in 1982 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He held professorships at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Maryland, and in 2021 was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, with a citation for “contributions to modelling of intelligent transportation networks and to interdisciplinary collaboration in transportation engineering”
In 2023, he received the Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (Informs), and was part of the 2024 class of Informs Fellows.
“Hani was a visionary scholar whose impact extended far beyond the classroom,” said Christopher Schuh, dean of Northwestern Engineering.
“His leadership elevated transportation research on a global scale, and he had a talent for connecting cutting-edge research with the industries that needed it most. His legacy will be felt for generations across the field and here at Northwestern.”
Among the many students he mentored was Zeina Nazer, co-founder of Cities Forum.
She told ITS International: "I met Professor Mahmassani at the American University of Beirut during his visit in 1997."
"We had espresso, it was my first! The espresso was so strong it rocked my life and so did he. He then became my supervisor when I did my MSc in Transportation Engineering at University of Texas at Austin in 1998."
"He was a great mentor and a true friend, he believed in me, and he shaped my life. He was a legacy! I will truly miss him."
Mahmassani also mentored Sharika Hegde, who in January this year was awarded the Outstanding Student of the Year Award by the Center of Connected and Automated Transportation at the 104th Annual Transportation Research Board Convention in Washington, DC.
As director of the NUTC, Mahmassani led an interdisciplinary education and research institution serving industry, government, and the public. He often consulted for public and private sector entities, sharing his knowledge with companies and government bodies in the US and abroad.
“Hani was a rock star in the transportation field," says Kimberly Gray, Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Family Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“He was beloved by his students and a wonderful mentor to so many people. His work had a global reach, and he was always many steps ahead making innovative strides on a wide array of projects, in Chicago, at presidential inaugurations, at international races in Monaco. I loved learning about his surprising projects, findings, and connections.”
“I first met Hani when I was applying to graduate school. Over the subsequent 25 plus years, he became a close colleague and friend,” said Karen Smilowitz, James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences.
“Hani was an influential scholar who profoundly advanced the field of transportation science and logistics. With his broad research interests, he built bridges across research communities. Just as he served as a mentor to me, he supported the careers of countless scholars and will be sorely missed.”
