Dr. Elefteriadou is the Barbara Goldsby Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Florida, and the founder of the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI), which she directed from July 2013 to June 2024. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on traffic operations, traffic flow theory and simulation. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Elefteriadou has developed several methods and analysis tools that have been published in the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), the major traffic operations publication used by most highway transportation agencies in the US and widely referenced worldwide. Starting in 2015, Dr. Elefteriadou led National Science Foundation (NSF)- and Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)- funded research to develop algorithms for a smart intersection that would control autonomous vehicle trajectories to optimize movement. Those projects developed signal control optimization and freeway management algorithms exploiting connected and autonomous vehicle capabilities. To facilitate implementation of this research and in partnership with FDOT and the City of Gainesville, Dr. Elefteriadou initiated the I-STREETTM living lab to develop, implement, and evaluate a variety of advanced transportation technologies in Gainesville and the UF campus. Since then, she has been working with several industry partners and has formed several partnerships, to develop, test, and implement advanced transportation technologies (such as smart sensors and autonomous vehicles) to Gainesville, and to conduct research to improve mobility and safety around Gainesville and beyond. In 2024, the I-STREETTM name and concept was licensed to UrbanSDK for nationwide deployment. In 2010, she was invited to chair the Highway Capacity and Quality of Service Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, which guides the development of the HCM (she completed her term in 2016). She has also served as President of the Executive Board of the Council of University Transportation Centers (June 2017-June 2018), and President of the Executive Board of the Research and Education Division, ARTBA (September 2014-September 2015). In addition to these, she has had numerous leadership roles in several societies such as IEEE, SAE. In 2011, and again in 2017 Dr. Elefteriadou led a team of ten universities and was successful in winning the US DOT-funded Regional University Transportation Center for the southeast region, one of ten such centers in the US. During the latest solicitation, the consortium, named Southeast Transportation Research, Innovation and Education Center, or STRIDE, received more than $15M over six years, as well as 100% of that amount in matching non-federal funds (http://www.stride.ce.ufl.edu).The focus of the consortium was on reducing congestion; it has produced numerous publications, and has funded numerous undergraduate and graduate students in the southeast. The center included research, education, workforce development, and technology transfer components. Dr. Elefteriadou was also the principal investigator for several other federal and state projects funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), NSF, the US DOT, PennDOT, and FDOT. She has authored or co-authored more than two hundred publications and reports related to traffic operational quality and highway design, as well as a textbook titled “Introduction to Traffic Flow Theory”, now in its second edition. Dr. Elefteriadou is an AAAS Fellow and an ASCE Fellow, and has received several awards for her research, including: the 2024 Win Philips Town Gown Relations Award, the 2021 ARTBA Research and Education S.S. Steinberg Award, the 2019 ASCE Harland Bartholomew Award for her work on I-STREETTM, the 2015 ASCE James Laurie Prize for her contributions to highway capacity analysis, the 2015 ARTBA Ethel S. Birchland Lifetime Achievement Award, and TRB’s Fred Burggraf award for excellence in research in 2001.