Monica Menendez is the Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Affairs and a Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). She is also the Director and Lead PI of the CITIES Research Center; and the recipient of the NYUAD Distinguished Research Award for 2021. Before joining NYUAD in 2018, Prof. Menendez was the Director of the research group Traffic Engineering at ETH Zurich. Prior to that, she was a Management Consultant at Bain & Company. She holds a Ph.D. (2006) and an M.Sc. (2003) in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley. During her studies there she received an NSF Fellowship and the Gordon F. Newell Award. In total, she is the recipient of more than 20 scholarships and awards from well-known and prestigious organizations, professional societies, and universities. Prof. Menendez also holds a dual degree in Civil Engineering and Architectural Engineering (2002) from the University of Miami, from where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. Her research interests include multimodal transportation systems paying special attention to new technologies and information sources. She is an active reviewer for over 20 journals, and a member of multiple editorial boards for top journals in Transportation as well as multiple international organizations. Prof. Menendez is the author of over 90 peer reviewed journal publications and over 200 conference contributions, book chapters, editorials, and technical reports. In the last five years, five of the papers that she has co-authored, have received best-paper awards.