The National University Transportation Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand (TBD Center) congratulates Professor Ram M. Pendyala, the Center’s Associate Director at Arizona State University, on being named the 2026 recipient of the W.N. Carey, Jr., Transportation Research Board (TRB) Distinguished Service Award.
This award recognizes Ram’s exemplary leadership and distinguished service, whose enduring impact has strengthened the profession in countless ways. It is a fitting recognition of his longstanding commitment to advancing transportation knowledge and serving the research community.
Ram has chaired TRB’s Traveler Behavior and Values Committee, Travel Analysis Methods Section, and Planning and Environment Group, and served on its Technical Activities Council. Through these roles, he has helped guide research priorities, connect disciplines, and translate research into practice.
His scholarship addresses questions central to TBD’s mission: How do people organize their daily lives and make travel choices? How are telecommuting, emerging technologies, and changing preferences reshaping mobility? And how can transportation planning and forecasting better anticipate those changes? With 175 peer-reviewed journal articles, nearly half of which appear in TRB’s flagship journal Transportation Research Record, a substantial record of practitioner engagement, and mentorship of nearly 25 doctoral and 50 master’s thesis students, his contributions extend from developing new analytical methods to mentoring the people who will carry the field forward.
At ASU, Ram leads the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and directs the TOMNET University Transportation Center. His career includes faculty positions at the University of South Florida and Georgia Tech. He holds a PhD and MS from the University of California, Davis, and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
Congratulations, Ram! We look forward to celebrating the award presentation at the 2027 TRB Annual Meeting.
