Alumni Spotlight: Matthew Fiore (‘25)
Matthew Fiore recently received the Institute of Transportation Engineers’s Louis J. Pignataro Memorial Transportation Engineering Education Award
Matthew Fiore belongs to that lucky group of people who can say that they are doing a job they have dreamt about for years.
But while he does, indeed, consider himself lucky to be working as a Schedule Improvement Analyst at Keolis Commuter Services — which operates and maintains the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Commuter Rail — it was careful planning and hard work, rather than luck, that led him to his current position.
Fiore, a lifelong New Yorker who had been fascinated by public transit systems for as long as he could remember, was initially attracted to NYU Tandon because of its transportation program, one of the most extensive offered at any university in the Northeast United States. (Plus, as he has pointed out, the school’s location in New York City, where all modes of transportation are easily accessible, made it a perfect place to study the topic.)
He became a student employee at C2SMART, the school’s transportation research center and immediately joined the student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) — an international membership association of transportation professionals — working his way up to chapter president by his junior year.
In that capacity, he presided over the NYU Tandon team’s fifth and sixth consecutive first-place finishes in the Northeastern District “Traffic Bowl,” which tests students' knowledge of transportation planning, engineering, and other ITE-related topics — just one of the many laurels he has to his credit. For example, shortly before graduating earlier this year with his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Fiore accepted the Student Chapter Momentum Award at ITE Northeastern District’s annual meeting in Buffalo.
Most recently, Fiore was presented with ITE’s Louis J. Pignataro Memorial Transportation Engineering Education Award, which was established in 2004 to pay tribute to the late Pignataro, a much-respected transportation engineer, teacher, and mentor. The award is given annually to a student or faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding performance in their studies or teaching and who has exhibited the potential to make notable contributions to the field. (The award was given in recognition of his work as a student, including the massive undertaking of organizing two Brooklyn-based “TransportationCamp” events.)
In addition to his classes and club duties, as an undergraduate, Fiore interned for two years at Amtrak, where he worked on capital improvement projects and managed to log more than 14,000 miles of train travel. He credits his time at Tandon for providing him with leadership skills and industry connections, as well as a solid foundation in transportation systems.
It’s lucky for the commuters of Worcester, New Bedford, and all of the many other stations that comprise the MBTA’s sprawling rail system, that Fiore is on the job.
Fiore is just the latest in a line of Tandon figures who have garnered the Pignataro Award. Others include:
- Haggai Davis
- Jingqin Gao
- Diego Correa Barahona
- Alexandra Gore
- Elena Shenk Prassas