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Michael Padilla, 277-1816

May 22, 2001

UNM professor named to Fulbright Scholar Program

University of New Mexico Civil Engineering Professor and Regents’ Lecturer Timothy J. Ross has been named to the Fulbright International Education Exchange Program for 2001-2002.

Ross is one of only eight American senior scholars receiving Fulbright grants for study in Canada next year. His project is titled “Safety Assessments for the Canadian National Railroad System: A New Hybrid Approach.” He will engage in a collaborative effort with the University of Calgary in their work supporting the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR), the country’s official railroad.

“My work in the area of system safety and reliability will be extended to assist the Canadian Pacific Railroad in their total risk management program,” Ross said.

Ross said that the research will be focused on the development of a framework that would allow the Canadian national rail systems to interrogate local weather databases in a continuous manner and to broadcast expected events to the rail operations in a manner that would span a continuum of temporal issues ranging from an immediate impending catastrophe at a specific location to longer-term maintenance requirements that must be taken to prevent a future tragedy from occurring along a long stretch of railroad right-of-way.

Ross was an elected fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineering in 1992. His published books include: “Fuzzy Logic with Engineering Applications,” published by McGraw-Hill, 1995, and “Fuzzy Logic and Probability Applications,” published by SIAM Publishers, 2001. He is also the associate director of the UNM Autonomous Control Engineering (ACE) Center.

Fulbright grants are awarded to American students, teachers and scholars to study, teach, lecture and conduct research abroad and to foreign nationals to engage in similar activities in the United States. Individuals are selected on the basis of academic or professional qualifications and potential plus the ability and willingness to share ideas and experiences with people of diverse cultures.

The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the Congress to the United States Information Agency. Participating governments and host institutions in many countries and in the United States also contribute financially through cost sharing, as well as by indirect support such as salary supplements, tuition waivers, university housing and other benefits.

Additional UNM faculty may be named to the Fulbright program for 2001-2002 at a later date.

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