Michael Hyland

Why did you originally choose Cornell?

I attended a branch campus of Penn State, Greater Allegheny, for two years before I transferred to Cornell. Greater Allegheny only has a two year engineering program, after which students generally transfer to Penn State - University Park.  I obviously knew that I was going to have to relocate after two years anyway so I decided to apply to engineering programs outside of Penn State. I decided to reapply to Cornell after being unsuccessful in high school mainly because of how highly my brother - who graduated in 2007 - spoke of his overall experience at Cornell.  Once I was accepted, Cornell Engineering's reputation and the University's financial aid package made it impossible for me not to transfer. 

In hindsight I would say that I made a really good decision to transfer based on everything I mentioned above but also because of the incredible undergraduate research opportunities available to students at Cornell.

What are some of your extra-curricular activities?

Outside of classroom I work part-time for the City of Ithaca's Department of Public Works - Engineering Department.  I was employed with the city this summer and my supervisor asked me to continue part-time this fall as a work-study employee. I help run the city's sidewalk program via: inspecting sidewalks, assisting the sidewalk construction crew, designing curb ramps, handling property owners concerns and meeting with contractors.

I am also a teaching assistant grader for CEE 4630 - Future Transportation Technologies and Systems this semester.  I hold office hours once a week and grade homework.

Additionally, I am the former vice-president and current graduate student adviser to the club basketball team.  I play point guard and shooting guard for the team - which finished second at the club basketball national championship last spring at NC State.

What are your plans after graduation?

I finish my undergraduate degree in December and I will be enrolled in the Masters of Engineering program here at Cornell in the spring.  After graduating from the M.Eng program in the spring, I am considering both: pursuing a PhD in transportation engineering; as well as, entering the workforce as a transportation engineer.  

What are your greatest accomplishments?

My greatest individual achievement was probably winning the John Egli Award as a sophomore at Penn State Greater Allegheny.  The award is given to the Penn State University Athletic Conference's top student-athlete. There were over 1,300 student-athletes eligible to win the award. I received the award based on my accomplishments on the basketball court, baseball field and in the classroom - the three activities I cared most about for the majority of my life. 

However, accomplishments that can be shared with others always seem to be more rewarding and memorable.  I am very proud to say I was a major part of my high school basketball team's WPIAL championship, Penn State Greater Allegheny's regular season conference championship in baseball, and Cornell Club basketball's northeast regional and Ivy League championships.

What type of research are you conducting at the moment?

Due to my internship with the City of Ithaca I am not involved with any research at Cornell at the moment.  Last fall, I was involved in facility location optimization research alongside Xiang Xu and Prof. Mark Turnquist.  We developed a model to determine facility locations across the United States for companies who need to ship their products internationally. The model minimizes overall cost based on the following parameters: demand based on location, coverage distance, minimum allowable uncovered demand, transportation costs and facility costs while planning for uncertainty in future demand scenarios.  The model aggregated years of research in the field of location modeling.

I plan to do facility location research with Prof. Turnquist again this spring.  I am also signed up to work with Prof. Vanek and a number of other M.Eng students this spring on a project with the NY/NJ Port Authority, analyzing their vehicle fleet.

What inspired you to pursue Engineering?

I think I was originally drawn to engineering because of the challenge it presented.  I wanted to see if I had the discipline, determination and intelligence to excel in engineering. However, I was still a little bit unsure of my abilities entering college so I did not originally declare a major.  Fortunately, I took an Introduction to Engineering class my first semester at Penn State and within the first 2 weeks I knew that I wanted to become a civil engineer.  Once I found out what type of projects civil engineers worked on, I was hooked.

What’s your specific major?

My undergraduate degree will be in civil engineering and my M.Eng will be in transportation systems engineering.