Susan Shaheen

Susan Shaheen is a pioneer in future mobility strategies. She was among the first to observe, research, and write about the changing dynamics in shared mobility, the environmental and social equity impacts of these modes, and the likely scenarios through which automated vehicles will gain prominence. She is the Director of the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies' Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative (RIMI) and Co-Directs the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) at UC Berkeley. She is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She served as the 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 a Ph.D. focusing on the energy and environmental aspects of transportation from UC Davis and a M.S. from the University of Rochester. After completing her master’s degree, she worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. From 2000 to 2001, she was a post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. She has authored 84 journal articles, over 160 reports and proceedings articles, 33 book chapters, and co-edited three books. Her research projects on shared mobility, smart parking, and older mobility have received national awards. In May 2019, she received the Most Influential Paper Award from the World Conference on Transportation Research (awarded every three years) for her journal article in Transport Policy: “Just a Better Taxi? A Survey-Based Comparison of Taxis, Transit, and Ridesourcing Services in San Francisco.” In December 2018, she received the ITS Berkeley faculty of the year award. She also received the 2017 Roy W. Crum award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) for her distinguished achievements in transportation research. In May 2016, she was named one of the top 10 academic thought leaders in transportation by the Eno Transportation Foundation. She was chair of the Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies Committee of the TRB from 2004 to 2011 and was subcommittee chair for the Shared-Use Vehicle Public Transport Systems of TRB (2013 to 2020). She joined the TRB Executive Committee in January 2019. She served as Vice Chair from 2020-2021 and Chair from 2021-2022. She became Chair of the TRB Executive Committee's Subcommittee on Planning and Policy Review in 2022.