Management Science PhD Candidate Earns Prestigious FAA Grant

Heng Chen, a fourth-year doctoral candidate at Isenberg, has received a prestigious $10,000 Federal Aviation Administration Graduate Research Award. The national honor is awarded to ten recipients only, and fosters applied research that addresses airport and related aviation system issues.  For his research, Chen, a Management Science major, will focus on airport metering systems, which measure the positions, trajectory, and movement of airplanes in their landing descents and departure ascents. Chen's faculty advisor and collaborator in the FAA funded project is Senay Solak, an associate professor of Operations Management.

The Isenberg PhD student plans to generate guidelines for the number and location of airplane metering points at airports and the tradeoffs involved in their alternative configurations. The optimized metering practices are expected to bring benefits to all stakeholders. If the project is successful with potential implementation, airports will benefit from less delay and improved runway utilization, while airlines will have reduced fuel burn costs. In addition, local communities will have reductions in exposed emissions and noise levels.