Tapan K. Datta

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Tapan K. Datta is a civil engineering professor at Wayne State University who specializes in transportation engineering and safety. He grew up in Calcutta, India, as the youngest of four children. His father was an electrical and mechanical engineer. He completed his early schooling in India, earning a diploma in 1955, then a two-year math and science degree in 1957, and later a degree in civil engineering along with a graduate diploma in town and regional planning from Bengal Engineering College in 1965. He has said he chose civil engineering to do something different from his father’s field. He also studied urban planning in India before entering what is now IIEST Shibpur.

In 1962 he worked for Kuljin, an Indian civil engineering firm, and that experience helped him pursue further studies at Bengal Engineering College. In 1967 he moved to Detroit to pursue a Master of Science in Civil Engineering at Wayne State University, working in the campus mailing room to support himself. He later became a part-time professor and, in 1973, joined Wayne State as a full-time faculty member. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a transportation focus from Michigan State University in 1973.

While in Detroit, Datta worked for and later owned Goodell Grivas, Inc., a structural engineering firm. The firm did major projects such as the roof of Cobo Hall in Detroit and the steel structure of Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland. He became the sole owner in 1981 and left the firm in the early 1990s to focus on research and teaching.

Datta founded the Transportation Research Group (TRG) at Wayne State, which brings together students to conduct transportation research for Michigan. TRG projects include the 2005 and 2007 Child Restraint Device Use and Misuse Surveys, OSHA training material development for highway work zones, and studies to identify where enforcement can reduce speed-related crashes. He has received many honors, including the 1992 Michigan State Safety Commission Award, the 2000 Arthur Carr Professorship, and several teaching and safety awards. He was inducted into Wayne State University’s College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2009 and was appointed to Michigan’s Construction Safety Standards Commission in 2009 by Governor Granholm. As of 2019, he retired from teaching and from leading the TRG.

Datta has also claimed to be the inventor of the double-drive-thru at fast-food restaurants.