FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Melissa Tooley, director of the Mack Blackwell Rural Transportation Center, has been elected president of the Council for University Transportation Centers.  She is the first woman to serve as president of the 26-year-old organization.

The council represents more than 60 of the nation’s leading university-based transportation research and education programs, which include centers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley. The council, established in 1979, is dedicated to facilitating the flow of transportation research and information among its members. 

“We’re very proud of her election to such a highly visible, nationally prominent position,” said Ashok Saxena, dean of the College of Engineering. “She will be a good leader for all the other transportation centers across the country.”

 “Melissa has been a leader for many years in the university transportation center program,” said Dennis Christiansen, past president of the council and director of the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. “The program she runs at the University of Arkansas is an outstanding example of what the university transportation center program can accomplish from both a research and an education viewpoint.”

The Mack Blackwell Rural Transportation Center, which is housed in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas, is the only council member geared specifically to researching rural transportation. The center, established in 1992, has conducted research in the fields of engineering, social science, agriculture, business and logistics as well as other disciplines.  Researchers in the center have collaborated with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tyson Foods and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, as well as with eight other universities around the country.