Lucius Riccio

Focus areas: Urban affairs, with a focus on transportation, sanitation, criminal justice, housing

Lucius J. Riccio, PhD, PE is a Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs where he teaches analytics, decision modeling, and operations management. He has been on the faculty of Columbia since 1995. He is also Executive Vice President and partner of Gedeon GRC Consulting, a full service engineering consulting firm. 

Prior to teaching at Columbia, Mr. Riccio served in a variety of high level corporate and government positions. Most notably, he was the Commissioner of NYC’s Department of Transportation and served on the Board of Directors of NY’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Prior to those positions he was the Assistant Commissioner of NYC’s Department of Sanitation, Deputy Commissioner for Highways (NYC), Assistant Director for Research at the Police Foundation (Washington D.C.), served on the staff of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement Productivity (Washington D.C.), was a consultant to the Federal Judicial Center of the Supreme Court of the U.S., and the U.S. Department of Justice. 

In the private sector, he held the position of Senior Vice President and partner at Urbitran Associates (a 220 employee, full service engineering firm), as a managing director for special projects at Douglas Elliman Real Estate (NYC), and as an engineer and systems analyst at Eastman Kodak, Carpenter Steel, and Air Products and Chemicals.  

He has published extensively, served on the editorial board of the Operations Research journal, received the ORSA (now INFORMS) President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement, won the inaugural PGA Tour’s Intelligence Prize for the best paper using their ShotLink data, awarded the 2006 Teacher of the Year at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, received the Ike Grainger award from the United States Golf Association for 25 years of service, the March of Dimes Service to Humanity Award, and the City (NYC) Club’s Earthling Award for contributions to the environment. He has served on the board of directors of Earth Day NY, the Metropolitan Golf Association, MetroCommute Inc., Community Medical Transportation Inc., a NASDAQ listed company, and others. He is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science, the New York Academy of Science and has been a Trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission.

Education

• PhD, Lehigh University
• MSIE, Lehigh University
• BSIE, Lehigh University

Affiliations

• Institute for Operations Research and Management Science
• New York Academy of Science
• Citizens Budget Commission
• Gedeon GRC Consulting

Honors & Awards

• ORSA (now INFORMS) President''s Award
• 2012 PGA TOUR Shotlink Intelligence Prize
• 2006 Teacher of the Year at Columbia SIPA
• United States Golf Association Ike Grainger Award
• March of Dimes Service to Humanity Award
• City Club’s Earthling Award

TEDxColumbiaSIPA drew more than 400 to presentations at Miller Theatre.