C. Michael Walton, SWUTC Executive Committee member, professor of civil engineering and the Ernest H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, received the 2013 Frank Turner Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Transportation.
The award recognizes lifetime achievement in transportation, as demonstrated by a distinguished career in the field, professional prominence and a distinctive, widely recognized contribution to transportation policy, administration or research.
Walton was honored for his influential 40-year career in transportation, in which he has combined distinguished university teaching and research, exceptional service to government at the state and federal levels, active engagement with the private sector and extraordinary service to professional organizations.
Walton received the award during a luncheon on Jan.16 at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 92nd Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. A committee composed of top staffers from the Federal Highway Administration, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, American Public Transit Association, the Texas Transportation Institute and TRB selects the award recipient. TRB, which is also the secretariat for the award, is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council, which is jointly administered by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
As a researcher on transport systems engineering and policy analysis, Walton has contributed to more than 500 publications in the areas of intelligent transportation systems, freight transport, and transportation engineering, planning, policy, and economics. He is internationally respected by his colleagues and peers and has received numerous awards and honors. His election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1993 gave formal recognition to the high esteem in which he is held in the professional engineering community. As an educator, Walton has influenced the lives of several generations of transportation engineering students and has been a strong mentor to many who have worked closely with him.