Goals and Objectives

We seek to hold TREC at PSU and ourselves accountable for enacting change through an anti-racism action plan. These goals will shape our evolving short and long-term strategies and actions.

Contribute to changing the transportation profession to be anti-racist and promote racial justice through lifelong learning.

  • In collaboration with PSU’s academic units, we will invest time and funding to support, retain, and recruit BIPOC students to undergraduate and graduate transportation programs, and support them in the transition to the professional workforce.
  • Change university curricula and experiences, so that future professionals understand the roles of racism, equity, and justice in transportation and have the tools to make change .
  • Change university curricula and experiences to elevate BIPOC scholars engaged in transportation engineering and planning so that future professionals are introduced to a diverse mix of lived experiences and cultural priorities in transportation.
  • Incorporate racial justice into TREC’s K-12 programs and professional development events.

Ensure that our transportation research activities contribute to advancing racial equity and justice and challenge institutional racism.

  • Support research that addresses racism and supports racial justice in transportation, and prioritize implementation of that research.
  • Improve our research processes at every stage, including peer reviews, data collection, proposal forms and selection criteria, and partner engagement.
  • Support our BIPOC scholars engaged in transportation research at PSU and in our programs.

Guiding Principles in Making Change

  • COLLABORATE: Our entire TREC team is engaged in this work, while seeking input and feedback from diverse voices engaged in transportation research, education, and practice, including our students, researchers, faculty, and community partners. We will apply an intersectional framework into our work and who we engage with.
  • ELEVATE: We must partner with and promote the work and efforts of others, particularly Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) voices. We won’t be successful if we rely solely on our own team and work.
  • COMPENSATE: We recognize that the people we ask to assist in our efforts are contributing their knowledge and experience and should be compensated.
  • LEARN: We will pause and reassess, because we cannot assume what we’re doing is working. We may not get everything right, but in the process we’ll learn and change.

Advancing Racial Equity in Transportation Academia and Industry at Portland State University

While one of the themes of our research is removing transportation barriers to advance social equity, we are not doing enough to center racial equity in our work at the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU). We are committed to leveraging our resources, skills and circles of influence to address systemic racism, and specifically anti-Blackness, in academia and the transportation industry but recognize this is a long journey.

In solidarity with our Black, Indigenous, and students and colleagues of color, we are holding ourselves publicly accountable in sharing the beginning of our plan for implementing anti-racist strategic objectives in our short and long-term work. This plan is iterative, and will evolve as we reflect on what’s working or not.

If you have any feedback or questions, please contact TREC Director Jennifer Dill at jdill[at]pdx.edu or TREC Associate Director Hau Hagedorn at hagedorn[at]pdx.edu.

Our Staff

Jennifer Dill, PhD
Director
Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning
503-725-5173 | jdill@pdx.edu
https://jenniferdill.net/
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Dr. Jennifer Dill is a professor in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University (PSU) and Director of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at PSU. TREC houses the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), which she also directs. NITC is a national university transportation center funded by the US Department of Transportation focusing on improving mobility for people and goods to build stronger communities. Dr. Dill also serves on the Board of Trustees for the TransitCenter, a New York-based foundation that works to improve public transit in cities across the U.S.

Professor Dill is an internationally known scholar researching the relationships between transportation, land use, health and the environment, focusing on active transportation. Before entering academia, Professor Dill worked as an environmental and transportation planner in California. That experience motivates her teaching and research, which aims to inform practice and policy. She has published extensively in peer-review journals and has served as principal investigator or co-PI on over $4.3M in research projects and over $28M in federal center funding. Her research has been covered by Wired, Governing, USA Today, the PBS NewsHour, Here and Now, Marketplace and the Atlantic. She has served on and chaired Transportation Research Board committees and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Transportation and Health, Transportation Research Record and the Journal of Transportation and Land Use.

Dr. Dill has a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley, an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a BS in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from UC Davis. She is also an aluma of the Eno Future Leaders program.

Hau Hagedorn
Associate Director
503-725-2833 | hagedorn@pdx.edu
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Hau is the Associate Director of TREC at Portland State University and is responsible for the day-to-day management, operations and provides overall direction for the TREC's peer-reviewed research and technology transfer programs, and shaping workforce development efforts. She actively participates in national efforts on conducting and implementing research. She also oversees programming and delivery of professional development workshops through the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI). She is co-Chair of the TRB Conduct of Research Committee, Chair of the Oregon Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (OBPAC), and member of the Region 1 Area Commission on Transportation (R1ACT). Hau has over 20 years of public and private sector experience in transportation. In her spare time, she runs to escape juggling the busy lives of three active kids.  

Becca Bornstein

Events & Office Coordinator

503-725-2896 | brebecca@pdx.edu

Rebecca is the Events & Office Coordinator for TREC, providing administrative support and managing logistics for TREC's events. She has a background in creative writing, and holds an M.F.A. from North Carolina State University. When she's not working, she likes to spend time reading and writing poetry, riding her bicycle, and snuggling with her cat. 

 

Basem Elazzabi, PhD
Senior Research Associate
elazzabi@pdx.edu

Basem is the head of programming and development for the PORTAL and BikePed Portal projects at TREC. He is responsible for maintaining and developing the database and the infrastructure of both projects. He also does various data analysis and visualization tasks. Basem received a PhD in Computer Science from Portland State University with a focus in database and data analysis. He also received his BS in Computer Science also from Portland State University. He has almost 20 years of experience in system analysis and development. His main interests are database systems, data analysis, distributed systems, and big data. His main research topics focus on how to facilitate data analysis for typical and non-technical data analysts. One of the main research topics that he works on is how to build the next generation data-analysis ecosystem in which institutions (government and private) can easily store their massive data and have easy access to data analysis tools to support and improve data-driven decision making.

Lacey Friedly
Communications Coordinator
503-725-8545 | rlacey@pdx.edu

Lacey is the communications coordinator for TREC. She connects with researchers, writes articles, and documents (through pictures, videos, and model towns) the value of the transportation research being done at TREC and through the NITC program. Before TREC, Lacey was the acquisitions editor for Dark Discoveries magazine. She also managed the editing department at Ooligan Press, Portland State University's student-run publishing house. She graduated from PSU in 2013 with a master's in book publishing. In her spare time Lacey enjoys swimming, reading, and making stop-motion animation videos. she/her/hers

Tammy Lee, PhD
Transportation Data Program Administrator
503-725-2884 | leetam@pdx.edu

Tammy is working on a variety of projects for TREC, including documentation, data synthesis, analysis, and visualization supporting ongoing work with PORTAL and Bike-Ped Portal. Tammy received a BS in Genetics & Plant Biology from UC Berkeley before earning a PhD in Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences from WSU. Prior to joining TREC she worked as a data scientist for a political digital media consulting firm. When not working she's either hiding in the forest or experimenting in the kitchen.

John MacArthur
Sustainable Transportation Program Manager
503-725-2866 | jhmacart@pdx.edu
Twitter | TREC Researcher Profile

Mr. John MacArthur is the Sustainable Transportation Program Manager at TREC at Portland State University and an instructor in civil and environmental engineering, teaching on new & emerging technologies in transportation. He is active in research related to sustainable and equitable transportation, particularly in the areas of emerging tech such as e-bikes, bike share, transit, and the relationship between transportation and public health. Mr. MacArthur is the Section Chair for Transportation Research Board’s AME00 Transportation and Society and a member of Innovative Public Transportation Services and Technologies (AP020). He received his BS in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and a MS in Environmental Health Sciences from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

Nathan McNeil

Research Associate

nmcneil@pdx.edu

Twitter | Researcher Profile

Nathan McNeil is a Research Associate at Portland State University's Center for Urban Studies. He conducts research on impacts of active transportation and transit equity, on new bicycle infrastructure and programs on tr   avel behavior and attitudes towards cycling, on shared-use mobility programs including carsharing and bike-share, and on the connection between land-use and transportation. He was Co-Principal Investigator on recent national studies of bike share equity (Breaking Barrier to Bike Share and National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs) and of protected bike lane implementations (Lessons from the Green Lanes). Nathan received a master of urban and regional planning from Portland State University (PSU) and studied history at Columbia University as an undergraduate. Prior to PSU, Nathan worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City as a performance auditor where he evaluated capital programs and contractors.

Home

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU) is a multidisciplinary hub for all things transportation. We are home to the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), the data programs PORTAL and BikePed Portal, the Better Block PSU program, and PSU's membership in PacTrans, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium. Our continuing goal is to produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education, seminars, and participation in research. Learn more about our transportation research and education programs.