Professor; Senior Associate Dean for Social Science and Global Programs in the College of Arts and Sciences
Accepting PhD students
Professor McDonald’s work focuses on how infrastructure investments and technology changes influence travel and the downstream impacts on road safety and public health. She is an internationally-recognized expert on the travel behavior of youth and young adults. Her work on children’s travel has shown that improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities can increase travel by foot and she has documented how to improve school planning through coordination with land use planning. She has assessed the causes of changes in driving in the US and UK especially among young adults. Her most recent work explores the impacts of rising small package delivery on road safety and looks at how to improve access to healthcare.
McDonald is currently working on several projects including:
- identifying strategies to improve non-emergency medical transport especially for groups with low transport mobility,
- measuring trends in injury rates for parcel delivery drivers,
- examining how development approval processes can better anticipate and provide for delivery needs,
- analyzing the travel of young adults, i.e. the millennial generation, to understand the potential transport and energy impacts, and
- assessing the multi-modal costs of school transportation.
In the News
Carolina Tracker: A Resource for Recovery
Making “PUBLIC” Economic Data Accessible
Reinventing Traffic Impact Assessment
Transit in the Era of Shared Mobility
Innovations in Ride-Hailing to Access Health Care
Additional Links
LinkedIn | Website | Google ScholarAffiliations: Carolina Transportation Program, Center for Urban and Regional Studies