NDSU Names Kimberly Vachal Director of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute
After a national search, North Dakota State University has named Kimberly Vachal director of the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, effective Nov. 2. Vachal, a transportation researcher and educator with more than three decades of experience at the institute, succeeds Denver Tolliver, who retires Nov. 5 after leading UGPTI since 2012.
“Kimberly Vachal brings a deep understanding of the transportation challenges facing North Dakota and the Upper Great Plains to this role,” said Provost Shari Veil. “The institute’s work shapes how people and goods move across the state, the region and the nation, and she is the right leader for its next chapter.”
As director, Vachal will provide strategic leadership for the institute's research development, external funding, stakeholder engagement and program growth, working in close collaboration with the UGPTI Advisory Council. She will oversee the institute's staff across its Fargo headquarters and Bismarck office and lead its partnerships with the North Dakota Department of Transportation, other state and federal agencies, Tribal governments and local and regional jurisdictions.
Vachal has served as a program director, senior research faculty member and transportation safety principal at UGPTI since 2021. She joined the institute as a research assistant in 1992 and, after a year as an account manager with Canadian Pacific Railway, returned in 1999 as a program director and senior researcher, a role she held until 2017. From 2017 to 2021, she was an associate professor in the Department of Transportation, Logistics and Finance, now the Department of Finance, Supply Chain and Transportation, while continuing as a program director at UGPTI. She is the lead investigator for the institute's agricultural industry and rural transportation safety and security activities.
Vachal's research focuses primarily on agricultural transportation economics and traffic safety evaluation, with a concentration in public policy and program evaluation. Her research agenda is developed in collaboration with stakeholders and emphasizes a globally competitive agricultural industry, human factors in traffic safety and community connectivity. She has written more than 50 research papers, authored several journal articles and assists other research faculty with policy and economic analysis.
Vachal has worked with students as research assistants and has taught courses in freight logistics, microeconomics, international development economics and traffic safety assessment. She earned a doctorate in public policy from George Mason University and master's and bachelor's degrees in agricultural economics from NDSU. She is a member of the Transportation Research Board, the International Partnership of Transportation and Health and the Western Regional Science Association.
About UGPTI:
The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute was created by the North Dakota Legislature in 1967 to study the transportation challenges facing the region's agricultural producers and processors. Today it advances the safe, efficient and sustainable movement of people and goods through interdisciplinary research, technology transfer, education and workforce development. The institute operates on an annual budget of about $25 million, roughly 70% of which comes from externally sponsored grants and contracts, and employs a professional staff of nearly 40. It is headquartered on the NDSU campus in Fargo with an additional office in the State Capitol complex in Bismarck. The institute is home to the university transportation center for federal Region 8 and NDSU's graduate programs in transportation and logistics. To learn more about UGPTI, visit https://www.ugpti.org/.