UC Davis’s Dr. Sperling honored with prestigious national research award  

Daniel Sperling, Ph.D., a professor of civil engineering and environmental science and policy and founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis), is the 2024 recipient of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s (ARTBA) prestigious S.S. Steinberg Award.

Named after the founding president of ARTBA’s Research & Education Division, the Steinberg Award recognizes “an individual who has made remarkable contributions to transportation education.

Dr. Sperling has been a researcher and educator for over 40 years, conducting research and teaching transportation at UC Davis, leading ITS-Davis to global leadership in sustainable transportation. He has authored or co-authored 13 books and over 250 papers and reports and launched a series of influential centers and programs at UC Davis, including the award-winning interdisciplinary graduate program on Transportation Technology and Policy.

Outside of academia, Dr. Sperling has had many leadership roles at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine Committee, including chairing the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Executive Committee and the alternative fuels and sustainable transportation standing committees, as well as serving on 15 study committees of the National Academies, mostly on energy, environment and sustainability. For 16 years he was also a transportation board member of the California Air Resources Board, chaired the California Fuel Cell Partnership, and currently serves as co-Secretary General of World Conference on Transportation Research Society. Dr. Sperling also has served on a large number of advisory committees for companies, agencies, universities, NGOs, and national laboratories, and testified to Congress eight times.

Among his prominent awards and honors are the Lifetime Achievement in Research and Education by the US Council of University Transportation Centers (2024); induction into National Academy of Engineering (2022); Roy Crum Award for research and service (2018) by the TRB, its highest research award; Asahi Glass Foundation Blue Planet Prize Laureate (2013) for being “a pioneer in opening new fields of study to create more efficient, low-carbon, and environmentally beneficial transportation systems”; and the Heinz Award in the Environment category (2010) for his “achievements in the research of alternative transportation fuels and his responsibility for the adoption of cleaner transportation policies in California and across the United States.”

Dr. Sperling has also had a tremendous impact on transportation by nurturing and producing new generations of researchers and leaders for academia, government, and industry, and inspiring many students who have gone on to become some of the leading figures in transportation.