Supported Calls - Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency

VREF support the Call for Lee Schipper Scholarship out for application. The Schipper family and the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities are now accepting applications for the 2022 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship for Sustainable Transport and Energy Efficiency.

2021 - Susan Gichuna, Tamara Kerzhner, and Wei Wei

• Susan Gichuna

“Weather, Climate Variability and Urban Commuter Travel Behaviour in Nairobi”.

Ms. Susan Gichuna, from Kenya. Susan is the second African scholar in the history of the Lee Schipper Scholarship. She is a researcher and currently a PhD student at the Institute for Climate Change and Adaptation, University of Nairobi, Kenya. She specializes in climate change and adaptation, sustainable urban transport, travel behaviour, gender and development. Previously, Susan worked at the United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, where she supported targeted research and outreach activities for programs promoting non-motorized and public transport in cities of the developing world. Her research will analyze the effects of climate change on urban transport in Nairobi, particularly regarding the impacts of rainfall and temperature on infrastructure, transport costs, traffic and transport services accessibility and availability.

• Tamara Kerzhner

“Is Informal Transport Flexible?”

Ms. Tamara Kerzhner, from Israel. Tamara is a PhD student at the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. She has BA and MA degrees in Geography and Urban Planning from the Hebrew University, and wrote her thesis on Palestinian women’s mobility needs in Jerusalem. Her research will investigate the impact of labour relations on the distribution and equity of access provided by informal transport networks in African cities. The goal is to collaboratively design a series of small-scale policy, regulation and funding approaches that support worker’s rights while also improving service quality and expanding the geographic coverage of networks.

• Wei Wei

“Strategies for supporting vehicle electrification with renewable energy resources”.

Ms. Wei Wei, from China. Wei is a Ph.D. student in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Transportation and a researcher at the Trancik Lab at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research is guided by a fundamental understanding of travel patterns and energy-consuming behaviors to inform strategic infrastructure planning for vehicle electrification. Her research will examine demand management strategies to support mass electric vehicle adoption with increasing penetration of renewable energy resources in the power grid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, drawing on cities in the United States, Indonesia, and Denmark as case studies.

2020 - Abisai Konstantinus, Jungwoo Chun and Fariba Siddiq

• Dr. Abisai Konstantinus

“Evaluating Conditions for Regional Maritime Transport in Southern Africa”.

Dr. Abisai Konstantinus is the African scholar in the history of the Lee Schipper Scholarship. He is a maritime expert based in Swakopmund, Namibia with experience as a seafarer, marine pilot, lecturer and researcher in the African maritime domain. He holds several degrees in Maritime Studies (CPUT), MPhil: Shipping Law (UCT), PQE: ICS, MSc: Shipping Management and Logistics (WMU) and a PhD Transport Engineering (UCT). His research will focus on the development of regional maritime transport in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region. His study will delve on the perceptions and experience of shipowners and operators to assist in identifying strategies to overcome barriers in regional maritime transport and favor its strategic role in the region as viable alternative to the more carbon-intensive road transport in the region.

See here an interview av Dr. Abisai Konstantinus about Studying maritime Freight in Africa

• Mr. Jungwoo Chun

“Institutional Innovation, Change Agents and the Electrification of Personal Transportation”

Mr. Jungwoo Chun, a Korean national, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachussets (USA). His research looks into the electrification of personal and commercial transportation, with a political economy focus on the role that key institutions and institutional stakeholders play in promoting the policy reforms that lead to vehicle electrification based on case studies of institutional dynamics in Denmark, Norway and Iceland. His objective is to contribute to the knowledge base for institutional and policy transformations required to promote electric vehicle adoption globally which is accelerating in the years to come.

• Ms. Fariba Siddiq

“Cross-Cultural Gender Differences in Travel: Ride-Hailing’s Emerging Role”.

Ms. Fariba Siddiq, a Bangladeshi national, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban Planning and a researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (USA). Her research will analyze gender differences in ride-hailing access and use experiences through a cross-cultural study in two global cities, Dhaka and Los Angeles. Her research will explore how and to what extent are these burgeoning ride-hailing services affecting safe and independent movement of women, before and after COVID-19. Her research will also provide insight into ride-hailing services’ use by different segments of the population and whether the use of this new mode is bringing in any transformational change in terms of access to opportunities in developed and developing countries, both for women and men.

2019 - Valentina Montoya and Teddy Forscher

Valentina Montoya is currently an SJD candidate at Harvard Law School. Her work broadly focuses on the commuting characteristics of female domestic workers in Latin American cities, and how local government law shapes these commutes. As part of a research agenda that aims to connect the legal structures of authority with the way cities are planned and the impact of these designs on the real-life experiences of domestic workers, she is using a mixed-method approach to capture the gap between the way planners think and how domestic workers experience the city as profoundly disempowered commuters. Her research aims at promoting public policy and legal changes to respond to domestic workers' needs, and by doing so, improving the commuting conditions of similarly situated users in cities in the global south. Before her doctoral studies, Valentina received a master's degree in Law, also from Harvard Law School, a master's degree in legal theory, and a dual bachelor's degree in Law and Political Science from Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá, Colombia.

Teddy Forscher is currently a fourth year PhD student in the Transportation Engineering program at the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). His work broadly focuses on the impacts that changes in personal consumption patterns—particularly towards more e-commerce transactions—have on transportation networks. As part of a research agenda that aims to enhance municipal and regional adaptability in the presence of new mobility services, he is developing demand models that capture preferences for a wide variety of online goods (e.g., parcels, groceries, hot food, etc.). Additionally, he aims to pair this work with insights gathered regarding the volume and composition of changing last-mile delivery fleets to produce one of the first comprehensive views of the near-term future of consumption and transportation. Prior to his doctoral studies, Teddy received a dual Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering and City + Regional Planning, also from U.C. Berkeley.

See also the recording of the presentations at the "Transforming Transportation 2020"

2018 - Junia Compostella and Jaime Soza Parra

2017 - Joanna Moody and Rafael Pereira

See an article related to the award 2017 released by the CityFix here