Professor Laurie Garrow’s research addresses the development and application of advanced models of travel demand that integrate discrete choice, econometric, and market research methods to enhance understanding of travel behavior. She is a faculty member in the Schools of Aerospace and Civil Engineering and serves as Co-Director for the Center for Urban and Regional Air Mobility and Director for the Air Transportation Lab at Georgia Tech.  Dr. Garrow earned her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at Northwestern University, with an emphasis on travel demand modeling and airline passenger behavior. Her dissertation won first prize in the 2004 INFORMS Aviation Applications Section and honorable mention in the 2004 Eric Pas dissertation competition sponsored by IATBR. She is a NSF CAREER recipient and won the prestigious ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize “for development and integration of advanced discrete choice models of traveler behavior into airline planning, scheduling, and revenue management decision support systems.” She is the 2009 recipient of the CUTC-ARTBA New Faculty Member Award, one of the most prestigious awards given to an untenured faculty member in transportation that recognizes research and teaching contributions. Her teaching contributions have been recognized via several institute-level awards including the CETL-BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award.

Dr. Garrow is an expert in aviation and is has been quoted in multiple media outlets including CNN, USA Today, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg and others. She has been invited to write op-ed pieces for Barron’s and the Scientific American and has been featured in IEEE Spectrum and Aerospace America.

Dr. Garrow has published articles on airline passengers’ behavior, discrete choice methods, and travel demand modeling. She is author of a text published by Ashgate entitled Discrete Choice Models of Air Travel Demand: Theory and Application. Among her leadership Dr. Garrow served as President of AGIFORS, Vice President of Societies and Sections on the Board of INFORMS, President of the Transportation Science and Logistics Society of INFORMS, Chair of the Aviation Applications Section of INFORM, co-chair of the Emerging Methods Subcommittee of the Transportation Demand Forecasting Committee of TRB, and a Board Member of the INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section. In October of 2020, Dr. Garrow was elected to be President of AGIFORS for a second term, making her the first woman, first academic, and first person to serve two terms of President in AGIFORS’ 60-year history. Dr. Garrow has five years of industry experience, including four years as an analyst in the Research and Development Revenue Management Group of United Airlines and one year as an analyst in the Customer Science Unit of Mercer Management Consulting.

Dr. Garrow has advised over 30 graduate students.  Five of her students were awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships and one was awarded a $69,500 Eisenhower Fellowship. Six of her students have participated in the Eno Leadership Development Conference and six of her students have won $10,000-$12,500 scholarships as part of the Airport Cooperative Research Program’s Graduate Research Award Program.

Air Transportation Lab at Georgia Tech

Urban and regional air mobility