Deputy Agency Director

Texas A&M Transportation Institute
1111 RELLIS Parkway
Room 5338
Bryan, TX 77807
(979) 317-2796
[email protected]

Dr. Joe Zietsman is the Deputy Agency Director and the Chief Research Officer (CRO) of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). As TTI’s CRO, Dr. Zietsman oversees TTI’s $125 million per year research portfolio.  

In his 27 years at TTI, Dr. Zietsman has served as Principal Investigator on research grants and contracts worth over $55 million, for numerous national and international sponsors, representing both the public and private sectors.

Dr. Zietsman is an interdisciplinary expert on topics such as sustainable transportation, strategic management of transportation systems, and health and transportation. He is active in the transportation research community, having authored numerous journal papers, technical reports, and books. Dr. Zietsman is regularly invited to speak and represent TTI at high-profile events worldwide. Dr. Zietsman serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of University Transportation Centers, where he chairs a taskforce on workforce development. He is also a member of the Coordinating Research Council’s Atmospheric Impacts Working Group. He has previously chaired the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Sustainable Transportation and has served TRB in various capacities such as on TRB’s Task Force on Arterials and Public Health, the Transportation Air Quality Committee, and the Transportation Performance Measurement Committee.

Dr. Zietsman is director of a successful US Department of Transportation funded University Transportation Center since 2016. The Center for Healthy and Efficient Mobility (formerly the Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions Energy and Health) is a consortium of universities led by TTI/Texas A&M University. Other consortium members include Johns Hopkins University, Georgia Tech, University of Texas at El Paso, University of California Riverside, Morehouse School of Medicine, and North Dakota State University. Since 2016, this center has addressed the critically important area of health and transportation.

Dr. Zietsman is on the Graduate Faculty of Texas A&M University in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, where he has served as a member or co-chair of several Ph.D. and Masters’ committees. He also developed and taught a course on transportation and the environment for an “Engineering for Transportation Professionals” master’s program under Texas A&M University’s Department of Multidisciplinary Engineering. He also frequently guest lectures and engages with students and faculty within Texas A&M University.

Dr. Zietsman holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (with a focus on Transportation Engineering) from Texas A&M University. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas.