Michael W. Levin, PhD, PE
Associate Professor
J.S. Braun/Braun Intertec Professor
Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering
University of Minnesota
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Hello! I am an Associate Professor specializing in transportation network modeling. I work at the intersection of transportation engineering, operations research, and computer science: I adapt operations research methodologies for transportation problems and use data structures and algorithms to implement models and solutions in software.
Transportation network modeling: user equilibrium route choice, vehicle routing problems, and graph/network algorithms
Traffic flow theory: using the kinematic wave theory to predict the behavior of traffic
Operations research: using linear programming, integer programming, and Markov decision processes to model and solve transportation engineering problems
Most of my work focuses on predicting or optimizing the impacts of emerging technologies on transportation. Here are some of the highlights of my research:
Bi-level transportation network design. I am developing branch-cut-and-price algorithms to find globally optimal solutions faster than prior work.
Max-pressure traffic signal timing, which is proven to maximize city throughput using Markov chains. I work on improving the practicality of the theoretical control and am working with Hennepin County engineers for a pilot deployment in Minnesota roads.
Predicting the impacts of automated vehicles on traffic congestion. I modified state-of-the-art traffic flow and traffic network models to include the modified driving behavior of automated vehicles to predict city traffic congestion as partial automation, like adaptive cruise control, become used widespread.
See my current and former students who have led most of my research and publications.
News
April 2026: Amaya Nissen won the Doug Barr Student Research Scholarship for undergraduate students working on research.
March 2026: Simanta Barman successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Maximum throughput in stochastic flow networks using Lyapunov optimization.
November 2025: Lexing Zhang won the CTS Travel Award for TRB.
October 2025: I won the 2025 Alfred Noble Prize for my paper "Max-pressure traffic signal timing: a summary of methodological and experimental results".
July 2025: Mobina Nankali successfully defended her MS thesis, Integrated traffic assignment model for evaluating shared mobility impacts on urban transportation systems
News archive
May 2025: Mobina Nankali won the Matthew J. Huber Award.
November 2024: Mobina Nankali won the CTS Travel Award for TRB.
October 2024: Simanta Barman won the Cale Anger Best Master's Thesis Award.
May 2024: Maziar Zamanpour won the Matthew J. Huber Award.
November 2023: Maziar Zamanpour successfully defended his MS thesis, Incorporating lane-change prediction into energy-efficient speed control of connected autonomous vehicles at intersections
November 2023: Simanta Barman and Maziar Zamanpour won the CTS Travel Award for TRB.
October 2023: My paper, "A multiclass link transmission model for a class-varying capacity and congested wave speed", was selected as the Editor's Choice for the ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems.
September 2023: Te Xu successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Boosting max-pressure signal control into practical implementation: methodologies and simulation studies in city networks.
September 2023: Shi'an Wang won the 2023 IEEE ITSS Best Dissertation Award - First Prize.
May 2023: Simanta Barman won the Matthew J. Huber Award.
May 2023: Te Xu was awarded the Hsiao Shaw-Lundquist Fellowship.
April 2023: Shi'an Wang won the Best Dissertation Award for the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering.
November 2022: Shi'an Wang successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Planning, operation, and management of automated transportation systems: A control-theoretic approach.
November 2022: Simanta Barman successfully defended his MS thesis, Performance, throughput properties, and optimal location evaluation for max-pressure control.
June 2022: Shi'an Wang was awarded the Hsiao Shaw-Lundquist Fellowship.
May 2022: Shi'an Wang was awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
May 2022: Shi'an Wang won the Matthew J. Huber Award.
December 2021: Jacob Margolis was awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellowship.
November 2021: Shi'an Wang, Simanta Barman, and Jacob Margolis won the CTS Travel Award for TRB.
October 2021: I was awarded the Transportation Science Meritorious Service Award.
August 2021: Jake Robbennolt successfully defended his BS honors thesis, A microsimulation study evaluating the benefits of cyclic and non-cyclic max-pressure control of signalized intersections.
May 2021: Te Xu was awarded the Hsiao Shaw-Lundquist Fellowship.
May 2021: Rongsheng Chen successfully defended his PhD dissertation, Maximum-stability distributed control in traffic networks.
April 2021: Jake Robbenolt won the Richard P. Braun Transportation Scholarship.
April 2021: Jeffrey Hu completed his BS honors thesis, Max-pressure signal control with cyclical phase structure.
January 2020: Rongsheng Chen and I won the 2019 Ryuichi Kitamura Award for our paper Dynamic user equilibrium of mobility-on-demand system with linear programming rebalancing strategy.
October 2019: I received the IEEE ITSS Young Professionals Traveling Fellowship for travel to IEEE ITSC 2019.
December 2018: Jack Olsson successfully defended his MS thesis, Integration of microsimulation and optimized autonomous intersection management.
August 2018: Jack Olsson was awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellowship.
August 2017: I was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.
May 2016: Rahul Patel won 1st place at the Poster Exhibition on Engineering Research.
May 2016: Eby Lukose won 2nd place at the Poster Exhibition on Engineering Research.
January 2016: I received the CUTC Milton Pikarsky Award for outstanding M.S. Thesis in Science and Technology.
January 2016: Melissa Duell, Stephen D Boyles, S Travis Waller, and I were finalists for the 2016 Stella Dafermos Best Paper Award for our paper Impact of autonomous vehicles on traffic management: Case of dynamic lane reversal.
January 2015: I was named the D-STOP Outstanding Student of the Year (Council of University Transportation Centers).
August 2014: I was awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Fellowship.
Open research assistant positions
I have at least one opening for M.S. or Ph.D. students studying network modeling, intelligent transportation systems, connected/automated vehicles, or related topics. All graduate students are fully funded (tuition and stipend). Please email me your resume or CV if interested.
I am also hiring undergraduate research assistants. Paid positions and course credit are available. Please email me your resume if interested.
I am not hiring postdoctoral researchers at this time.
About me
I grew up in Houston, TX and I enrolled in the Turing Scholars Computer Science honors program at The University of Texas at Austin in 2009. In October of 2009, I was hired by Travis Waller to develop software implementations of new convergence algorithms for dynamic traffic assignment, and I continued working with Natalia Ruiz-Juri and Jen Duthie at the Center for Transportation Studies until I finished my degree in 2013. Simultaneously, I enrolled in the UTeach program, culminating in a semester student teaching 9th grade algebra at Austin High School, and educator certification for math grades 8-12. Afterwards, I immediately started a MS/PhD in Civil Engineering with Steve Boyles (who replaced Travis after he moved to UNSW) and started researching automated vehicles.
After I finished my PhD in 2017, I joined the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota. In July 2022, I took a leave of absence to work at Amazon in Arun Jotshi's Topology Science team, which was part of Supply Chain Optimization Technologies, where I worked on facility location for inbound crossdocks and fulfillment centers. I returned to teaching at the University of Minnesota in July 2023.
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