Francis Vanek grew up in Ithaca, NY, was a Rotary Exchange student in Japan during the 1985-86 school year, and received bachelors’ degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Asian Studies from Cornell University in 1991. Thereafter he earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Systems Engineering in 1998, where his doctoral research focused on the environmental impact of freight transport and logistics activities.  From 1998 to 2001 he was a Lecturer in Logistics Management at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, where his teaching and research continued to focus on these issues.  Since 2001 he has served as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Cornell, where he teaches and researches in the areas of energy efficiency, alternative energy, sustainable transportation, and green building.  He is lead author of the textbooks Energy Systems Engineering: Evaluation and Implementation (fourth edition 2021) and Sustainable Transportation Systems Engineering (first edition 2014), both from McGraw-Hill, New York.  In addition, he is a Kripalu-trained yoga teacher and has taught classes for Cornell Athletics and Recreation at various facilities on the campus since 2019.  Since 2002 he is a resident of the Ecovillage at Ithaca cohousing community, where he is a community leader in efforts to advance green technology and alternative transportation.