Pablo Durango-Cohen has won the University of California Transportation Center's student of the year award for 2002-2003. Durango-Cohen, who received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, is now the Louis Berger Junior Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Northwestern University.

He wrote his dissertation on the development of infrastructure management policies in cases where a decision-maker either lacks a performance model or has access to several competing models. Institute of Transportation Studies Acting Director Samer Madanat was his thesis adviser.

"Pablo's work combined methods from control theory, optimization and artificial intelligence in an original manner to develop methods that decision-makers can use when there is limited information about facility performance," Madanat said.

Besides a prize of $1,000, Durango-Cohen will receive travel expenses for two to the annual Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington, D.C. in January. He will be formally presented with the award there on January 13.