Faculty
The Master of Sustainable Transportation program features expert UW faculty along with credentialed instructors who work in the field.
Ed McCormack – Director
Ed McCormack is a research associate professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, an adjunct research associate professor in the Department of Urban Design & Planning, and the director of the Master of Sustainable Transportation program. He has more than 30 years of experience working on transportation issues and conducting research regarding the use of technology to improve transportation sustainability, mobility and security. He is currently focusing on researching methods to improve goods delivery in urban areas.
McCormack has also helped implement transportation technology projects in one of the most sustainable countries in the world, working as a chief engineer for the Norwegian national transportation authority. He has led efforts to use trucking industry GPS data to develop roadway network performance for freight, explored the relationship between land use and transportation, and developed transportation applications for geographic information systems. He has a master's in civil engineering and a Ph.D. in geography, both from the University of Washington.
Courses Taught: Capstone Project
Ryan Avery
Ryan Avery is the deputy director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) at the University of Washington, where he facilitates connections between UW researchers and state and local agencies. Avery also supports research projects and specializes in large-scale data analysis, applying his database and programming knowledge to efficiently process and analyze massive datasets to improve our understanding of multimodal transport systems. He’s an expert in GIS, data analysis and management, with years of experience working with large transportation data sets, such as tolling data and transit fare card data.
In his previous work as a consultant planner and data scientist, he gained broad multimodal experience working with local agencies in the Puget Sound region, including Sound Transit, WSDOT, King County Metro, Community Transit, Washington State Ferries and the City of Seattle. He has international experience working in the UAE on the Dubai Integrated Rail Transit Master Plan and the Abu Dhabi Regional Rail Study, and he was previously a researcher at the Centre for Traffic Research in Stockholm, Sweden. He holds a master's degree and Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Washington.
Courses Taught: CET 561: Transportation Planning & Design and Statistics Modules
Thomas Dow
Thomas Dow is the director of transportation and programs at the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG) in Oklahoma. He previously served as director of transportation for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission and as a senior transportation planner and project manager for the Alliance Transportation Group. Dow has also served as a senior community and regional planner for an engineering firm, as transportation manager for the City of Olathe, Kansas, and the state transportation planner for the Kansas Department of Transportation. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Dow was the president of the American Planning Association, Kansas Chapter, and received the APA-KS Ad Astra Award for a Sustained Contribution to Planning in Kansas. He holds a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Kansas.
Courses Taught: CET 569: Policy Development, Finance & Sustainable Transportation
Doug Eisinger
Douglas Eisinger is a senior vice president and chief scientist for transportation policy and planning at Sonoma Technology. He has more than 30 years of public and private sector experience. Under the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, he chaired the U.S. Transportation Research Board’s Air Quality (2017-2020) and Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation (2020-2023) Committees. For more than 12 years, Eisinger was the program manager for the UC Davis-Caltrans Air Quality Project. He also served four years as mobile sources section chief for U.S. EPA Region 9, San Francisco. He taught Air Quality Management: Policy and Practice for 20 years at the University of Hawaii, and he also taught transportation policy at UC Davis. Eisinger’s book, “Smog Check: Science, Federalism, and the Politics of Clean Air,” is an in-depth case study of one of the U.S. Clean Air Act’s most important emissions control programs. Eisinger earned a bachelor’s in government at Cornell University, a master's in public policy with an emphasis on energy and environmental policy at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in environmental policy analysis at the University of Wales.
Courses Taught: CET 567: Health & Sustainable Transportation
Travis Fried
Travis Fried is a Ph.D. candidate in the UW Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. He is a spatial data and urban freight enthusiast with a master’s degree in geography from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor's degree in sociology/anthropology from Carleton College. His career spans eight years of transportation and environmental research in the public sector, nonprofits and academic institutions. Most recently, he worked as an urban mobility researcher for World Resources Institute (WRI), where he studied topics including the environmental, health and equity impacts of open public transit data, urban freight, shared mobility, transport-related stimulus spending and impact investing.
Courses Taught: CET 566: Environmental Analysis & Assessment
Celeste Gilman
Celeste Gilman is nationally recognized as a Complete Streets Changemaker by Smart Growth America. She is the Strategic Policy Administrator in the Washington State Department of Transportation's Active Transportation Division, where she leads implementation of the requirement to deliver Complete Streets for state transportation projects. She also leads strategic efforts to work with partners across the state to utilize land use as a tool to manage transportation demand and give more people the opportunity to walk, bicycle and take transit for their daily trips. She has held different roles at the WSDOT including Transportation and Land Use Policy Advisor and Deputy Director of the Regional Transit Coordination Division. As Deputy Director, she worked with transit agencies and local cities to bring planners and engineers together to expand high-capacity transit and multimodal station access. Prior to joining WSDOT, Gilman led the University of Washington's award-winning transportation demand management programs, resulting in nondrive- alone modes for 80% of campus trips. Gilman is a graduate of Community, Environment and Planning at the University of Washington.
Courses Taught: CET 564: Sustainable Transportation From a Systems Perspective
Mark Hallenbeck
Mark Hallenbeck recently retired as the director of the Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) at the University of Washington. He had been with TRAC for about 35 years and frequently taught urban transportation planning and intelligent transportation systems in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.
Much of Hallenbeck’s research involved data that described transportation system use and performance. He has worked with multiple agencies in the region to examine how big data and new technology can be used to improve regional mobility, while examining how changing mobility options are affecting land use decisions. Hallenbeck worked on projects that ranged from the analysis of how dynamic pricing on the I-405 express lanes impacts user behavior to the use of electronic transit fare cards and dockless bike data for better multimodal planning.
Courses Taught: CET 563: Transportation Choices & Technology
Jenny Liu
Jenny Liu is an associate professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. She is an applied economist with a focus on public policy, urban issues and social equity. Her research takes on a multidisciplinary approach with a deep foundation in microeconomic theory, econometric methods and environmental sustainability, focusing on linkages between transportation, economic development and sustainability, economic issues and impacts of public policy, and human capital investments. Much of Liu's recent research involves examining the economic, business and equity outcomes of active transportation infrastructure investments. In addition, she currently serves on the Oregon Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors. Liu holds a master's degree and Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from University of California, Berkeley.
Courses Taught: CET 568: Transportation Economics
Don MacKenzie
Don MacKenzie is an associate professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. He leads the Sustainable Transportation Lab, which develops and evaluates technical and policy solutions for making our transportation system more economically viable and environmentally benign while providing access for all. His research areas include infrastructure and smart cities, vehicle electrification, new mobility services, and the impacts of vehicle automation. MacKenzie holds a Ph.D. in engineering systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Courses Taught: Research Methods and CET 565: Climate Change & Energy
Rocky Piro
Rocky Piro is the executive director of the Colorado Center for Sustainable Urbanism. He serves on the board of directors for the International Urban Planning and the Environment Association and is past chair of the Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division of the American Planning Association. He served as manager of the Community Planning and Development Department in the City and County of Denver, as program manager for the Growth Management Department at the Puget Sound Regional Council in Seattle and as manager of the Intergovernmental Planning Team for King County, Washington. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners examination committee that prepares the qualifying exam for planners seeking professional certification. Piro is the recipient of the Myer Wolfe Award for Excellence in Planning and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2010. He received his Ph.D. in urban design and planning from the University of Washington and his master's from the University of Colorado Denver.
Courses Taught: CET 562: Livable Communities & Design and CET 569: Policy Development, Finance & Sustainable Transportation
Karen Wolf
Karen Wolf, FAICP, is an affiliate instructor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. She recently retired as a senior policy analyst with King County, Washington, where she spent more than 30 years working on regional land use projects and helping implement the Washington State Growth Management Act, including serving as project manager for the comprehensive plan and for the countrywide planning policies. Her interests include efforts to curb sprawl and focus growth in urban areas while preserving environmentally sensitive rural areas and resource lands, the application of social justice in regional planning and advocacy for walkable communities. In 2016, she was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She served 8 years as an elected member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Commission and is now the AICP President-elect. Wolf holds a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Washington.
Courses Taught: CET 562: Livable Communities & Design