H. Oliver Gao is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and a world-renowned expert on transportation and environment/energy systems. Dr. Gao is an elected member in the graduate fields of 1) Cornell Institute of Public Affairs (CIPA), 2) Systems Engineering, 3) Transportation Systems Engineering in Civil and Environmental Engineering, 4) Air Quality in Earth and Atmospheric Science, and 5) Computing and Information Science at Cornell University. He is Editor-in-Chief of the leading international academic journal, Transportation Research D: Transport and the Environment. His research focuses on engineering/economics modeling and systems management solutions for sustainable and intelligent infrastructure and lifeline systems, low carbon and low emission transportation systems, environment (especially air quality and climate change)-energy systems, and the closely related issues of infrastructure and environment finance such as game theory and mechanism design for public-private partnership (PPP). 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 was a former member of the 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 current 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. Gao also enjoys close and frequent intellectual interactions with his networks in finance--before joining Cornell, Gao was a quantitative analyst (QUANT) in the mathematical and econometrical modeling division at a Wall Street hedge fund specializing in emerging markets such as the Brazil, Russian, India, and China (BRIC). Since 2005 he has contributed invited presentations to international conferences in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, China, and Korea as well as in the US. Dr. Gao was a visiting professor with the French Institute of Science and Technology of Transport, Development and Networks (the IFSTTAR) in the summer of 2011, working with the Département Aménagement, Mobilités et Environnement (AME) on GHG emissions from French Freight Transportation.

Over the past decade, Professor Gao’s research on urban transportation infrastructure and air pollution/health has resulted in the development of an international leading research program in transportation and air quality studies at Cornell University. Through both solo efforts and collaborations with others, he has secured significant and continued research funding sponsored by US and international organizations such as US Department of Transportation, US Department of Agriculture, the Lloyd’s Register Foundation (UK), US Environmental Protection Agency, etc.. His research publications have appeared in highly regarded transportation, environment, and management journals including Environmental Science & Technology, Transportation Research, Energy Policy, and Atmospheric Environment, etc. The outcome of his research has significant implications for improved capability to model, predict, and control transportation emissions and to evaluate their impacts on air quality, with the ultimate effect of optimizing transportation and air quality management strategies and thus improving public health.