Research Overview of the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University

Laura Fay, Research Scientist, leads the Cold Climates Operations and Systems research group at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University. Laura holds a M.S. in Environmental Science and Health from the University of Nevada, Reno and a B.S. in Earth Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has over a decade of transportation related research experience focused on winter maintenance operations, best practices, and use of big data, as well as low volume road and gravel road research.

Laura will provide a general overview of the research groups and centers at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University. She will then provide a more detailed look into past and current work in the Cold Climates Operations and Systems and the Infrastructure Longevity and Sustainability research groups which she collaboratively leads. She will then focus on future research, area for partnership, and bridging gaps between research institutions and private industry to solve real world problems.