Robert Bertini, Ph.D.

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Transportation Research, USF Tampa

Robert L. Bertini is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Executive Director of the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He serves on the Engineering Dean’s Leadership Council, chairs the Transportation Engineering Area Committee, directs the U.S. Department of Transportation National Institute for Congestion Reduction (a national university transportation center), and is Courtesy Professor in the Patel College of Global Sustainability. Bertini is a licensed professional engineer in Florida, Oregon and California and has been recognized as a Fellow by the American Society of Civil Engineers, by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and as a Senior Member with IEEE.

Bertini chairs the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board Operations Section and served on the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Board of Governors and the U.S. Vehicle to Infrastructure Deployment Coalition. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, where he developed an online multimodal transportation data repository that is a platform for performance measurement, modeling and prediction. He also received the DeFazio Transportation Hall of Fame Award, and two Diversity Awards from WTS International.

Bertini was the founding director of the Portland State University Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory and the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, a statewide national university transportation center. He also served as U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Administrator for Research and Innovative Technology where he also led the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, chaired the Department’s Innovation Council, and championed collaboration, partnerships and strengthening organizational diversity and culture.

Bertini is committed to engineering education and strives to form collaborative, multidisciplinary teams, in partnership with the community, to lead competitive national and statewide research and education initiatives. Earlier in his career, he gained civil engineering design, construction and surveying experience on public works and transportation projects.  Bertini earned his B.S. cum laude in civil engineering from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (minor in French horn performance), an M.S. in civil engineering from San José State University, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.