Dr. Sandi Rosenbloom, Research Professor and Fellow of Hampton K. and Margaret Frye Snell Endowed Chair in Transportation, School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin is the 2025 recipient of the Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lectureship. Dr. Rosenbloom, who is also Director of the University of Texas Austin’s Lab for Safe and Healthy Aging, is recognized for her pioneering research that has advanced our understanding of urban mobility and transportation equity.
The Deen Lectureship recognizes the career contributions and achievements of an individual in one of the areas covered by TRB’s Technical Activities Division. Originally known as the Transportation Research Board Distinguished Lectureship, the award was renamed in 2002 in honor of the eighth TRB Executive Director, Thomas B. Deen, who served with distinction from 1980 to 1994. Honorees are invited to present overviews of their technical area of expertise, including evolution, present status, and prospects for the future. TRB also publishes each lecture in a volume of the Transportation Research Record. Dr. Rosenbloom will deliver her lecture, “How Little We Really Know: The Unrecognized Centrality of Marginal Groups in Transportation Planning and Policy,” on Monday, January 6, 2025, as part of the TRB Annual Meeting.
Dr. Rosenbloom’s work is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach, combining insights from sociology, urban planning, and public policy to address the multifaceted nature of transportation issues. In doing so, her research addresses pressing transportation issues, provides innovative solutions, and influences theory and practice. Dr. Rosenbloom is an established leading authority in understanding and addressing the complex transportation needs of diverse populations, including older adults. As a result, her work has significantly influenced both academic discourse and practical applications in transportation systems worldwide. Most notably, Dr. Rosenbloom's most significant contribution is her research on the mobility needs of older adults. Her studies and subsequent publications have highlighted the unique transportation challenges faced by aging populations, such as the inadequacy of public transportation options, the design of pedestrian infrastructure, and the implications of driving cessation. These influential publications have become essential references for scholars and practitioners, driving policy changes and practical solutions to improve transportation systems for older adults.
Dr. Rosenbloom is a true trailblazer. As noted in The Transportation Research Board: Everyone Interested is Invited - 1920 to 2020, authored by Sarah Jo Peterson:
In 1978, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) and the National Academy of Engineerings’s (NAE) Committee on Transportation co-sponsored a conference on women’s travel behavior... The organizers received hate mail, USDOT was nominated for a Golden Fleece Award for government waste, and a prominent conservative columnist subjected it to ridicule... Rosenbloom chaired the conference’s steering committee and, as speaker after speaker attested, had done the lion’s share of the work to pull it all together. Katherine O’Leary, on the steering committee from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, made sure the attendees also knew that the conference had been Rosenbloom’s idea. In addition, Dr. Rosenbloom edited the proceedings, writing an extensive preface about the significance and nuance of research on women and transportation that still reveals insights 40 years later.
Dr. Rosenbloom’s service to the Transportation Research Board over the last fifty years is significant. She has served as Chair and Vice Chair of the Executive Committee, Chair of the TRB Division Committee (formally the Subcommittee on Planning and Policy Review), and Chair of the Standing Committee on Paratransit. She has served as a member of multiple TRB committees including the International Coordinating Council, Committee on Equity Implications of Evolving Transportation Finance Mechanisms, Standing Committee on Accessible Transportation, Standing Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values, Standing Committee on Transportation History, and multiple NCHRP and TCRP project panels. Currently, she is an Emeritus member of the Standing Committee on Women and Gender in Transportation (formerly Women’s Issues in Transportation).
Dr. Rosenbloom is the author/co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and major research reports. In 2004, she was awarded the TRB Roy W. Crum Distinguished Achievement Award for outstanding achievements in transportation research and the production of fundamental and developmental transportation planning research. Also in 2004, Dr. Rosenbloom was named a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in honor of her contributions to the National Research Council.
Dr. Rosenbloom was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Planning Association, an Associate Editor of TRB’s Transportation Research Record (TRR), the U.S. editor of the journal Transportation, and is serving or has served on the Editorial Boards of six major transportation and planning scholarly journals including TRR. Rosenbloom was also President, Vice-President, Conference Committee Chair, and regional representative of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, the North American organization of professors of city planning.
Dr. Rosenbloom earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in public policy, and a Ph.D. in political science, all from the University of California, Los Angeles.