WSU Transportation Professor Wins Lifetime Achievement Award

PULLMAN, Wash. — Kenneth Casavant, a transportation economist in the Washington State University School of Economic Sciences, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University.

The award recognizes an individual who has had a distinguished career in a transportation-related field. Casavant is an alumnus of NDSU and serves as an adjunct professor there. He earned his doctorate at WSU in 1971 and has been on the faculty since 1970.

His research focus in the Transportation Research Group, which he heads, includes transportation economics and policy, and international trade and marketing. Transportation economics and policy is an area of excellence for the newly formed WSU School of Economic Sciences. Over the past 10 years, he and his group have been awarded more than $4 million in grants.

Recently, he was a lead collaborator on a $500,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration to form a regional freight transportation center to study issues that transcend state borders. The Northern Plains-Pacific Northwest Center for Freight Mobility focuses on research and outreach to improve rail, truck and barge traffic in a region stretching from Chicago to Seattle across the northern tier of western states.

Casavant was selected to give a Distinguished Faculty Address at WSU, received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Western Agricultural Economics Association in 2003, and received the best paper award from the 2006 European Applied Business Conference in Florence, Italy. He also received the 1990 Faculty of the Year Award at WSU and has won teaching awards at the university, regional and national levels.

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