Dr. Joan Walker receives Zephyr Leadership Award 2020
At the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in January 2020, in Washington DC, Professor Joan Walker received Zephyr Foundation’s Leadership Award
I was very happy to get the chance to interview her, through a video call, to know more about her journey and influential career.
Dr. Walker is currently a Professor at UC Berkeley in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies, she works to improve the models that are used for transportation planning, policy, and operations. As an academic, Dr. Walker has led our field in cross-collaboration with the fields of behavioral economics, environmental justice, and data science to produce relevant and actionable research.
She grew up in Davis, California, and she received her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from UC Berkeley and her master’s and PhD degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT. And she continued her journey in academia as an Assistant Professor of Geography and Environment at Boston University.
After working more than 30 years in the industry, I asked Dr. Walker about her early beginnings and whether she always imagined her career the way it is now.
“I was influenced by my father’s career as a Civil Engineer, and my mother’s motivation as a feminist” — Joan Walker
In addition to that, her skill and interest in math and science at a young age, made her always imagine herself to work in engineering at some point.
Her first job was a research assistant during her undergraduate studies.
“I remember my first assignment and I still reflect on that to remind me how small tasks matter in research and the importance of mentoring that we received from our supervisor back then, who’s now my colleague at Berkeley. He was able to connect how my counting lane changes on a freeway for him contributed to his bigger picture of advancing traffic flow theory and how that could improve the performance of our transportation system.”– Joan Walker
She also remembers her start at TRB as a young researcher, and how enthusiastic she was to meet the people whose papers she had read and to connect with others who are interested in improving the industry.
Her contributions have grown ever since. She was even appointed the Chair of the Committee on Transportation Demand Forecasting (ADB40) for the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, until April this year. She used this leadership position to advance the science of Travel Demand Modeling, including pushing the theme each year at the TRB annual meeting and organizing a workshop funded by the National Science Foundation that resulted in a report presenting a road map for the field.
When discussing her current career, between research and teaching, I asked her about what she is mostly passionate about in her work.
“At the beginning as a professor, one would care more about research, but now at this point, I find even greater value in teaching, even though research still holds space for innovation, I find teaching what is really changing the world especially when mentoring new researchers.” — Joan Walker
She finds an opportunity in her work as a mentor to diversify the field by bringing different backgrounds and ideas to the industry.
She has also held many leadership positions including the Director of Demand Modeling at Caliper Corporation and an Acting Director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) and a Co-Director of Global Metropolitan Studies. I asked her about her experience in these positions.
“As a researcher and in my leadership positions, somehow I always try to leave an impact in whatever I do, rather than just keep the flow going.”– Joan Walker
Her first approach when working in a new environment is to listen more to others to understand what the real problems are and what needs to be done before she makes decisions and contributions, while figuring out how to collaboratively work towards progress as a community.
The more we discussed leadership, the more I understood why she received this award. She is extremely modest, passionate about her work and she is surely the last person to care about the privilege leadership positions give her. Rather she values intellectual stimulation and the change she can make through these positions no matter how difficult. As such, she is a perfect example of servant and transformational leadership; the type of leadership the world truly needs nowadays to solve the interrelated and complex challenges we are facing.
Along with the Zephyr leadership award, she also received a certificate of appreciation from the Transportation Research Board ADB40 Committee for her contributions in highlighting the critical need to diversify our profession and the value it will bring.
“I was super honored to be acknowledged by both Zephyr and ADB40 at the TRB annual conference.” — Joan Walker
This award is only one among many, as she previously received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers, along with over 20 other awards.
Reflecting how PECASE helped in highlighting her achievements at an important turning point as she was just transitioning to Berkeley:
“Even though this is not why you do these contributions, it still feels great to be recognized for contributions…and as an academic to be given a career award, is important especially at an early age” – Joan Walker
I then asked her about a theme that came up throughout our conversation: representation of different social groups.
“There are still many gaps and bias in the society and many groups are far from being represented.” — Joan Walker
She gave an example how she still attends meetings where she is the only woman at the table. And she acknowledged how the challenges are much larger for women of color and other underrepresented groups.
She also believes that community representation is crucial in improving transportation sector.
“Low income people are not well represented, neither people of color, nor many other groups which is really a problem, especially when studying human behavior.” — Joan Walker
She also emphasized how important it is that the planners and engineers have enough knowledge about the communities, and this can’t be achieved without including everyone at the table, as collecting data and field studies are not enough.
Moving the discussion to the pandemic, I asked her about the main challenges currently facing transportation sector.
“There are critical issues related to equity regarding transport for lower income people and essential workers. Some people still have no choice but to take transit, so it’s important to ensure safety at all levels of transportation. If there is more diversity among decision makers, these issues will be talked about and dealt with more. The decision makers, whether academics and city workers are usually privileged, so they can’t relate to low-income people, and unless you have experienced something, you can’t really understand it.” — Joan Walker
“It’s also interesting that before the big transport issues were congestion problems and the emergence of shared modes. With the pandemic, congestion has reduced and the whole idea of a shared world is much more problematic. Although, so far it was shown that using transit, for example, while wearing masks is not that dangerous as compared to other activities if people are not wearing masks. And UC Berkeley also did a survey, and it showed that 80% of people (faculty and staff) prefer to work at home for at least two days a week even after the pandemic. So, this seems to have given a greater push to telecommunication solutions that has been long in discussion for decades but has never taken hold in mass. The problem, however, is to worry about land use effects such as where people choose to live and lifestyle choices related to auto-dependence.” — Joan Walker
She also explained how the demand is insatiable. If demand on traffic is reduced, the speed will be increased, which will make demand increase again, following economics principles. People will be making different decisions influenced by many factors, whether regarding where they live or how they travel.
The current focus in her research during the pandemic.
She is currently looking into studying what makes people comply or not to the different sheltering and physical distancing rules, because they have different barriers to be able to comply that are related to income, work status and attitudes. So, she is interested in studying behavioral issues and how to get over the pandemic. While the study is more broadly examining compliance of health guidelines rather than transportation, there is a flavor of transport behaviors, including how people’s use of and opinions towards vehicle sharing modes, transit, and telecommuting have changed.
By the end of the interview I felt deeply inspired myself. Dr. Walker is not only an inspiring professor and scientist, with her academic and professional contributions at many institutions and at different levels, but also an inspiring person through her modesty, work ethics, passion, and compassion for others and her restless dedication in advocating for diversity among decision makers and equity in the community.
The Zephyr Leadership Award shall be given to an individual who embraces the Zephyr mission of advancing rigorous transportation and land use decision-making for the public good by advocating for and supporting improved travel analysis and facilitating its implementation.
