Study Committee Biographical Information
Brian D. Taylor (Chair) is professor of urban planning, director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Luskin School of Public Affairs. He served as chair of the Department of Urban Planning from 2008 to 2011. Previously, he was a member of the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a transportation planner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission of Oakland, California. His research centers on transportation finance, politics and planning, and travel behavior. He has been a member of Transportation Research Board (TRB) policy study committees on equity implications of transportation finance mechanisms, on potential energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions from transportation, and on contracting out of transit services. He received TRB’s 2001 Pyke Johnson award for the best paper submitted in transportation planning or administration. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Planning Association and Transport Policy and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and the American Planning Association. He received a Ph.D. in urban planning from UCLA, M.C.P. and M.S. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. from UCLA.
Ryan Chin is managing director of the City Science Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, and his research focuses on developing new urban systems for a connected world. He earned his doctorate by creating Mobility-on-Demand
(MoD) systems—a network of one-way, shared-use, lightweight electric vehicles (LEVs) enabled by electric charging infrastructure and smart fleet management systems. Under Dr. Chin’s leadership, the Smart Cities research group developed a series of LEVs for MoD systems in collaboration with industry, including the CityCar (with General Motors), the RoboScooter (with Sanyang Motors), and the GreenWheel Electric Bicycle (startup in Taiwan). This research led to the group’s first major publication, Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century. Dr. Chin has been a keynote speaker and panelist at conferences such as MIT’s Emerging Technologies Conference (EmTech), TEDx, SIGGRAPH, Convergence, China Planning Network, MIT World, and Gridweek. He holds bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering and architecture from the Catholic University of America, along with a master of architecture and an M.S. and Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from MIT.
Melanie Crotty is director of the Travel Coordination and Information Section at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the regional transportation planning, finance, and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked at MTC for 14 years. Her responsibilities include the delivery and operations of a variety of customer service projects, including the 511 traveler information program, the TransLink transit smartcard program, the regional rideshare program, and the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) California testbed. Her group is also responsible for implementation of the Regional ITS Architecture, the regional marketing program, and regional transit connectivity services. Ms. Crotty currently serves on the ITS California Board of Directors and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) VII Working Group. She holds an M.S. in transportation engineering and an M.A. in city planning from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.
Jennifer Dill is professor at Portland State University (PSU) in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. She is also director of the Transportation Research and Education Center at PSU, which houses the National Institute for Transportation and
Communities, the USDOT’s national university transportation center for livable communities. Her research interests include travel behavior, transportation–land use interactions, and environmental aspects of transportation. Current projects include evaluations of peer-to-peer carsharing and equity aspects of bikesharing. She serves on the TRB Committee on Transportation Demand Management and previously chaired the Committee on Bicycle Transportation. Prior to joining PSU, she worked for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Local Government Commission in Sacramento, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regional office in San Francisco. She holds a B.S. in environmental policy analysis and planning from the University of California at Davis, an M.A. in urban planning from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley.
Lester A. Hoel, now retired, was L.A. Lacy distinguished professor of engineering at the University of Virginia, and was previously professor of civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. His area of expertise is the engineering planning and design of surface transportation infrastructure, with emphasis on highway and transit systems. He coauthored the textbook Traffic and Highway Engineering and coedited the text Public Transportation. His research contributions have dealt with such infrastructure issues as travel demand, advanced transit technology applications, design of public transportation terminals, transit maintenance facilities, scenic byways, toll facilities, airport access, and interstate trucking. Dr. Hoel received the Stanley Gustavson Award from the Highway Users Federation for contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the field of highway transportation; the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Frank Masters Award for outstanding contributions to and leadership in urban and highway transportation research and education; and the ASCE James Laurie Prize for his sustained and outstanding contributions to the advancement of transportation engineering through his teaching, research, and service to professional societies. Dr. Hoel is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. He is a former member of the TRB Executive Committee and served
as its chairman in 1986. He also served as TRB’s division chair for Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) oversight from 1995 to 2004. Dr. Hoel was appointed a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1989. He holds a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Michael Manville is a professor in Cornell University’s Department of City and Regional Planning. He has two primary areas of interest: the relationship between transportation and land use, and local public finance. He studies the willingness of people and communities to finance different government services, and also studies the tendency of local governments to hide the costs of transportation in the property market. He is particularly interested in how land use restrictions intended to fight traffic congestion can influence the supply and price of housing. His research has been published in a variety of transportation and planning journals, including the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, Urban Studies, and Transport Policy. In addition, Dr. Manville has advised local, state, and federal officials about transportation policy and has consulted with both developers and environmental organizations about land use regulation. He holds a Ph.D. in urban planning from UCLA.
Steven Polzin is director of mobility policy research at the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida and is responsible for coordinating the center’s involvement in the university’s educational program. Dr. Polzin carries out research in mobility analysis, public transportation, travel behavior, planning process development, and transportation decision making. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Transportation and serves on several TRB and American Public Transportation Association committees. He recently completed several years of service on the board of directors of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (Tampa, Florida) and on the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization board of directors. Dr. Polzin worked for transit agencies in Chicago (RTA), Cleveland (GCRTA), and Dallas (DART) before joining the University of South Florida in
1988. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an M.S. and Ph.D. in civil engineering from Northwestern University.
Bruce Schaller is principal at Schaller Consulting. He previously served as deputy commissioner for traffic and planning for the New York City Department of Transportation from 2012 through 2014. In this capacity, Mr. Schaller was responsible for the safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible movement of people and goods on the city’s streets. He was responsible for the development and implementation of programs and projects designed to enhance the city’s bus, bike, pedestrian, and truck networks, including implementation of the transportation elements in Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC and key initiatives in the department of transportation’s (DOT) Sustainable Streets Strategic Plan. He also oversaw DOT’s art and urban design initiatives, including serving as liaison with the Public Design Commission, and clean fuel initiatives focused primarily on trucks, other commercial fleets, ferries, and taxis and for-hire vehicles. From June 2007 through 2011, Mr. Schaller served as DOT’s first deputy commissioner for planning and sustainability, spearheading the implementation of key PlaNYC initiatives including Select Bus Service (SBS); innovative parking pricing policies; public space planning, including DOT’s Plaza Program; neighborhood planning studies; and publication of the department’s annual Sustainable Streets Index. Prior to his tenure at DOT, Mr. Schaller was principal of Schaller Consulting. He consulted extensively for local governments, transit and airport authorities, university and nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, and federal agencies on the identification of transportation needs, the development of effective transit programs, taxicab regulation, transit fare policy, road pricing, transportation finance, customer communications, and bus rapid transit. Mr. Schaller also has served as deputy director for marketing research and analysis at New York City Transit, where his work was instrumental in fare policy initiatives, expansion of the paratransit program, the development of customer communications, and the design of new subway cars and buses. He has served as well as director of policy development and evaluation at the New
York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. He holds an M.A. in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Oberlin College.
Susan Shaheen is an adjunct professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also codirector of the university’s Institute of Transportation Studies’ Transportation Sustainability Research Center. She served as policy and behavioral research program leader at California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways from 2003 to 2007, and as a special assistant to the Director’s Office of the California Department of Transportation from 2001 to 2004. She has worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA in Washington, D.C., and as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. She has authored 55 journal articles, more than 100 reports and proceedings articles, and four book chapters and coedited one book. She has also served as a guest editor for Transport Policy, the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, and Energies. Dr. Shaheen’s research projects on carsharing, smart parking, and older mobility have received national awards, and she was the chair of TRB’s Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies Committee from 2004 to 2011. In addition, she is a member of the National Academies’ Transit Research Analysis Committee, a member of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Program Advisory Committee to the USDOT secretary, chair of the TRB subcommittee on Shared-Use Vehicle Public Transport Systems, and a member of two TRB standing committee focused on advanced public transportation systems. She holds an M.S. in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in ecology, with a focus on the energy and environmental aspects of transportation, from the University of California at Davis.
Daniel Sperling is distinguished professor at the University of California at Davis in the Departments of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy. He is also founding director of the university’s Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis). He was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the California Air
Resources Board in February 2007 and was codirector of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Study. Dr. Sperling is recognized as a leading international expert on transportation technology assessment, energy and environmental aspects of transportation, and transportation policy, and he was recently honored as a lifetime national associate of the National Academies. He has served on 15 National Research Council committees, has chaired TRB standing committees on alternative fuel vehicles and sustainable transportation, and is chair of the TRB Executive Committee in 2015. He is author or editor of more than 200 technical articles and 12 books, and has testified many times to the U.S. Congress and the California Legislature on alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technology. Dr. Sperling holds a B.S. in environmental engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in transportation engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Marzia Zafar is currently director of the Policy and Planning Division (PPD) in the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). PPD consists of a small group of policy analysts charged with identifying and analyzing utility industry issues, internal and external procedures, and interagency relationships that would not ordinarily be addressed by the CPUC’s industry divisions in the course of their operations. PPD provides commissioners, the executive director, and the management team with independent analysis and advice focused on CPUC practices, procedures, issues, and policies. Ms. Zafar joined the CPUC in June 2007 as chief of staff to Commissioner Simon. Most recently, she managed the commission’s Business and Community Outreach Branch. Ms. Zafar has been in the regulatory and energy industries for more than 16 years. She started her career with Southern California Gas Company as a cost accountant, then moved to regulatory case management, where she focused on cases related to the energy crisis of 2000–2001, affiliate transactions, general rate cases, and gas industry restructuring. Ms. Zafar is one of the Smart Grid team members at the CPUC and wrote the first draft of the Smart Grid Rulemaking. She has been working with the Smart Grid team since its inception in 2008. She holds a B.A. in business from California State University, San Bernardino.
Susan Zielinski is managing director of SMART—Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation—a cross-disciplinary initiative at the University of Michigan that advances sustainable transportation systems in an urbanizing world. Previously, she spent a year as a Harvard Loeb fellow focusing on new mobility innovation and leadership. Prior to 2004, she cofounded and directed Moving the Economy (MTE), a Canada-wide “link tank” that works to catalyze and support sustainable urban transportation innovation as well as new mobility industry development, an integrated industry approach developed at MTE. As a transportation planner for the City of Toronto, Ms. Zielinski worked for more than 15 years developing and leading transportation and livability policies and initiatives. She has advised on a range of local, national, and international initiatives, including the National Advisory Committee on Energy Efficiency, Transport Canada’s Sustainable Development Advisory Committee, the Gridlock Panel of the Ontario Smart Growth Initiative, the OECD’s Environmentally Sustainable Transport Project, the King of Sweden’s jury of the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities, and the European Conference of Ministers of Transport. She was also a long-time board member of Canada’s Center for Sustainable Transportation and founding board member of the Green Tourism Association. She holds an M.S. in environmental studies from York University.
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