Dr. Gao, Director of Cornell Systems Engineering and Director of Center for Transportation, Environment, and Community Health (CTECH), is an Associate Professor with the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He is an elected member in the graduate fields of 1) Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2) Air Quality in Earth and Atmospheric Science, 3) Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA), and 4) Systems Engineering at Cornell University. His research focuses on quantitative modeling and development of engineering systems solutions for sustainable and intelligent infrastructure and lifeline systems, low carbon and low emission transportation systems, and the closely related environment (especially air quality and climate change)-energy systems. He also studies alternative transportation/energy technologies, systems innovation, and green supply chain and logistics (e.g., sustainable food systems, quantifying and mitigating green-house gas emissions from food supply chains). He is a member of Transportation Research Board Committee on Transportation and Air Quality (ADC20), an academic member on the Federal Advisory Committee of US EPA MOVES model development, a member of Transportation Research Board Committee on Maintenance Equipment (AHD60), and a member of the Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF). Gao received his graduate degrees (Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, M.S. in Statistics, and M.S. in Agriculture and Resource Economics) from the University of California at Davis in 2004, M.S. degree in Civil Engineering in 1999, and duel undergraduate degrees in Environmental Science and Civil Engineering in 1996 from Tsinghua University, China. He recently stepped down from the Editor-in-Chief post of Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment. Before joining Cornell, Gao was a QUANT in the mathematical and econometrical modeling division at the Rohatyn Group, LLG, a Wall Street hedge fund specializing in emerging markets including the BRIC countries.