Cycling Research Board Annual Meeting

I am an Architect and Urbanist with a Research Master’s degree in Urban Planning and Transport Engineering, and I am currently a PhD researcher in gender-inclusive cycling in the UK. My academic journey builds on the foundations developed during my Master’s research in Fortaleza, Brazil, where I analysed cycling accessibility inequalities related to gender, race, and income.

I am now continuing this research with a new focus on perceived accessibility and women’s lived experiences in diverse and multicultural cities in the Global North, while maintaining the theoretical and methodological base developed in my previous work. My research connects transport engineering, social sciences, and urbanism to better understand how equitable cycling planning can promote more inclusive cities.

I am a collaborative and socially engaged researcher, working with both qualitative and quantitative methods to bridge data-driven accessibility analysis with feminist and intersectional perspectives. I am fluent in Portuguese and English, with working knowledge of Spanish.

I am a PhD candidate at the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Management at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. My doctoral research explores how the single street transformations can lead to systemic changes in street design and support the practical implementation of sustainable mobility, climate adaptation, and more liveable urban environments. I particularly examine how interdisciplinary approaches, environmental psychology, and project management frameworks can strengthen inclusive and coherent street transformation processes.
Alongside academic research, I am engaged in cycling advocacy through the Ukrainian NGO U-Cycle and the Wroclaw-based NGO Akcja Miasto. In 2025, I presented at the Velo-city 2025 conference on the topic “From Protest to Policy: Can Ukraine's Cycling Movement Overcome Barriers in Urban Transformation?”

PhD student in Geography, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland

I am completing a Master of Science in Sustainable Urban Mobility Transitions at Aalto University. Prior to starting my master's, I was a Policy Analyst for the Government of Canada. It was my bike commute to work that inspired me to volunteer with my local bike advocacy organization and engage in municipal consultations to improve the cycling infrastructure in my city. I decided to pursue a formal education in transportation planning to better understand urban systems and develop skills to be a more effective cycling advocate. Through my master's thesis research, I am analyzing the effectiveness of cycling study visits in preparing participants to translate their learning into local action using an organizational learning lense. I am interested understanding how participants learn and apply their knowledge to develop more efficient knowledge sharing practices.

Dr. Antônio Nélson Rodrigues da Silva is a full professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), where he has taught since 1990. He received a degree in Architecture from Universidade Santa Úrsula (1984), and earned his M Sc. (1990) and Ph.D. (1993) in Transportation Engineering from the São Carlos School of Engineering (USP), where he currently serves as Deputy Dean. His academic work focuses on transportation planning, sustainable urban mobility, and engineering education. Dr. Rodrigues da Silva has supervised over 60 graduate students and 65 undergraduate research and capstone projects. He has completed sabbaticals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands), and the University of Minho (Portugal), and has been a visiting scholar in Venezuela, Malaysia, Germany, Belgium, and Austria. His publications focus extensively on accessibility, resilience, and mobility challenges in developing countries.

Ashton R. Rohmer is an urban planner and doctoral researcher in peace and conflict studies. She studies our transportation system as a site of power, violence, care, and commons. Using an interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach including critical discourse analysis, participant observation, interviews, and surveys, her dissertation theorizes how the language people use in civic forums to maintain power atop the modal hierarchy evidences an ideology of car supremacy and how in response to a conflict system of vehicular violence, neighbors are reimagining our streets for safety, connection, and joy.

Carlotta is master student pursuing a dual degree between Metropolitan Analysis, Design and Engineering at Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University and Research, and Geoinformation Science at Wageningen University and Research. As part of her first master thesis, she discovered her passion for active mobility, and pursued this interest by researching how parents’ perception of traffic safety might be formed in a more bike-centric culture.

Christian Blanco is a PhD researcher in Sociology at Heidelberg University whose work focuses on research evaluation, governance and the social sustainability of science. He has built his professional career in higher education and research policy, currently serving as Subdirector of International Research at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he leads initiatives on international collaboration and participatory research. Alongside his academic trajectory, he has maintained a lifelong engagement with cycling, particularly mountain biking, participating in community initiatives, trail stewardship and local advocacy. This dual perspective informs his interest in participatory governance, environmental responsibility and the role of recreational communities in shaping multi-user urban natural spaces, where he is now extending his academic interest.

Christoph is a postdoctoral researcher at TU Dresden and a physicist by training. His research focuses on understanding and optimising the design of urban mobility networks, with an emphasis on bike path networks and the synergistic integration of public transport and cycling.

Christopher Fletcher, Ph.D. is a medical anthropologist concerned with the relationship between culture and health generally, the intersection of Indigenous models of health and healing with mainstream biomedicine, and the identification and reduction of health inequity. He is Full Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at Université Laval, researcher in the Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Axis, at the CHU de Québec Research Centre and project co-lead of the Qavvivik Inuit Family and Community Health Centre in Montréal.

David Fevyer is a Research Associate currently focusing on quantitative research at the Active Travel Academy, University of Westminster, UK. He also has a background in English Literature

What do I perceive whilst cycling through the city? How safe do I feel on a cycle path? What am I supposed to do when the cycle lane suddenly ends?

At TU Berlin, I'm investigating infrastructure from a cyclist's perspective. In my PhD thesis (Comprehensible Cycling Infrastructure), I am investigating how cyclists understand infrastructure and how cycling infrastructure can be designed to be intuitively comprehensible. Furthermore, I am involved in a project to research interactions between cyclists and motorists in traffic situations that are hard to interpret. In a previous project, I conducted research on the perceived safety of cyclists.

Dimitri is an urban planner and mobility expert from Ghent. He has been working for nearly 10 years at MINT, one of Flanders' leading consultancies in mobility planning and traffic modelling, where he specializes in strategic and high-level planning studies. His main focus is on projects where smart spatial planning and sustainable mobility solutions intersect.

Roxani Gkavra is a mobility researcher specialising in sustainable transport with a PhD on travel behaviour in the context of shared micromobility. She has contributed to major European and national projects at BOKU University in Vienna, Austria, including work on mobility hubs, demand‑responsive transport and the interplay between travel behaviour and urban planning. Her scientific work explores a diverse set of emerging topics including shared mobility user profiling, walkability, accessibility, equity, and mobility justice analysis.

Biology graduate passionate about sustainability currently completing a master’s degree in Urban Environmental Management at Wageningen University and Research.

Gil Andrade Gontijo is a Master's student in the Graduate Program in Transportation Engineering (PPGET) at the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (USP), where he also earned his degree in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis on Computing. He currently works as a Laboratory Specialist at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM) at USP. With experience in Transportation System Planning and Organization, his research uses big data and spatial analysis to investigate urban micromobility focused on bike-sharing systems.

Post-doctoral researcher at ESALQ/USP. I have a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Federal University of Paraná - UFPR and a master's and doctoral degree in Transportation Engineering from EESC/USP. I have acted as director of the Urban Mobility Department of the Ribeirão Preto/SP City Hall and worked in consulting companies in the areas of urban, environmental, and transportation planning. In addition, I have developed technical studies in the area of urban mobility for municipal and national non-governmental organizations.

Ioannis Kanakis is a graduate of the Physics department of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) (1991) and holds a Master's Degree in "History and Philosophy of Science and Technology" of the National Technical University Athens (NTUA) & (NKUA) (2000). He has worked as a Physics teacher in secondary education (1993-2002) and as a Laboratory Teaching Tutor at the NTUA and the Technical University of Crete (TUC) in “Physics” and “Renewable Energy Sources” educational laboratories (2003-today). He has presented papers at international conferences on issues of renewable energy sources. For the last 5 years his research interests focus on sustainable urban transitions and especially sustainable urban mobility/transport transitions , SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans) and Active Mobility (especially bicycle).

Attached you can find my profile picture and here is my short biography: Isabel is a Doctoral Researcher at Aalto University with a focus on cycling cultures and the role of planners. She pursued her master's degree in Sustainable Urban Mobility at both UPC Barcelona and Aalto University as part of the EIT Urban Mobility program. During a visit to Oulu, she got inspired by the city's unique cycling environment for winter cycling. The city in Northern Finland became the case study for her master’s thesis on Oulu’s cycling culture and continues to be a case study in her PhD studies.

Dr Johannes Gruber is a researcher at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Transport Research, where he leads applied research projects on sustainable urban mobility and the practical integration of new mobility concepts into everyday operations. His work focuses particularly on commercial cargo bike use, while also addressing the practical implementation of new mobility concepts, organizational change processes, and knowledge transfer. He is the project lead of Ich entlaste Städte 2, the long-term small vehicle trial on which this contribution is based, and co-editor of the open-access volume Radlogistik. He collaborates closely with business, civil society, public institutions, and research partners, connecting empirical research with practical change.

John Munro is the author of The Anticolonial Front: The African American Freedom Struggle and Global Decolonization, 1945-1960 and, with Radhika Natarajan, the Public Books Imperialism Syllabus.

Myka Tucker-Abramson is the author of Novel Shocks: Urban Renewal and the Cultural Origins of Neoliberalism and Cartographies of Empire: The Road Novel and American Empire.

John Pickering and Gina Showers are in-house consultants for the Chicago Department of Transportation. They work in the Complete Streets team where they focus on delivering projects that include transit improvements, bikeways, and pedestrian improvements. Our team has helped Chicago create a network of over 500 miles of bike lanes while focusing on low-stress routes, including protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways.

This contribution represents a collaboration between the Department of Cycling and Sustainable Mobility and the Department of Environmental Meteorology at the University of Kassel, combining expertise in active mobility and urban climate research.

Josefien started working at the university of Antwerp as a researcher for the Design Sciences Hub. She specialiced in mobility-related projects, with a focus on transport poverty, job accessibility, active travel and sustainable mobility. Recenty she started a PhD. The PhD explores how spatial policies can contribute social equity, with a particular focus on low-income groups, accessibility, the role of cycling and the potential of public transport.

Joyce David is a researcher at the Chair of Cycling, Department of Geography at Ghent University. Her work explores how children’s perspectives can challenge and enrich dominant understandings of mobility, and what conditions are needed to enable their independent and everyday movement through urban space.

Her research critically examines how adults speak about children and cycling, and how recurring assumptions in policy, media, and safety discourses shape what is considered “normal” or “safe” mobility. At the same time, she works directly with children using participatory methods (such as wearable video) to capture how they experience streets, navigate environments, and respond to everyday mobility situations in real time.

By bringing these perspectives together, her work reveals blind spots in current mobility systems and highlights how child-centered approaches can address broader structural issues.
She argues that if urban environments work for children, they ultimately work better for everyone; positioning children as a critical lens through which to rethink mobility, accessibility, and the right to the street.

Project Manager specializing in mobility and road safety, Julie Delzenne brings over ten years of experience in the field. She designs and leads studies focused on innovation and vulnerable road users, with a clear objective: making mobility safer, more inclusive, and more sustainable.

Kato is a mobility researcher at Ghent University focusing on cycling, travel behaviour, and sustainable mobility transitions. Within the Ghent University Imagines 2050 project, she explores how major campus relocations act as catalysts for behavioural change and sustainable urban transitions. By combining technical modeling with insights from lived experiences, Kato aims to support the development of infrastructure that is inclusive, intuitive, and future-proof for all users.

Bio
Coming from a small car-dependant village in South Germany, Keke personally experienced a decarbonisation journey by moving from car to cycling culture.

Spreading the joy of this experience is the reason why they pursue a PhD at TUM on Wider Economic Benefits of Bicycle Infrastructure (WEBBI): to decrease barriers of cycling infra in planning and implementation by providing evidence-based arguments and quantifications of the wider economic benefits of urban cycling infra.

Lately, they have been experiencing challenges with the current world situation of (points at everything) and thus became interested in the direction of collapse research.

Besides cycling, Keke likes to read sci-fi and fantasy stories with bikes and to do archery (not yet from the saddle of a bike though).

Houskeeping
Pronounciation of Keke: [keːkə]. "ke" as in "kettle", not "kiki" like "kitchen"
Info on they/them pronouns: here

I am Laurent, a French postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark. I have been working a lot on the modelling side, and dream of bridging this discipline to psychology and sociology. My goal is to have a better understanding of the conditions for which cycling becomes an accessible and desirable mode for most of us.
I am actually a versatile cyclist, commuting 30 km every day to my university.

Laurent Guennoc is Eco-Counter Market Leader for Active Transportation. He graduated in engineering in France before moving into marketing and international sales. Over the last 15 years, Laurent Guennoc has been helping Eco-Counter to bring patented and accurate technology to different cities in the world wishing to better understand pedestrian and bicycle flows. Based on its many years of experience throughout the world, he provides cities wishing to foster and secure active travel develop their cycling experience with real decision-making tools.

Linda Marie Pätzold studied Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where she completed both her Bachelor's and Master's theses in the field of bicycle planning. This year, she is graduating with a Master's degree in Urban Ecological Planning from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Lindsay is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, working towards a thesis unpacking the systemic interplay between elements of automobility and velomobility in the Dutch context, and challenging many long-held assumptions - including their own! In their free time, Lindsay builds strange bicycles, drives a fifteen-year-old electric van, and collects plush trains from around the world.

Lisa Stähler is a research associate in the Public Health Group at the Institute of Medical Sociology. She holds a B.Sc. in Psychology with a Research Minor from Maastricht University and a M.Sc. in Psychology from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
She pursues her PhD within the project UNITY where she works as the project coordinator and conducts research on the effects of a multi-strategic bicycle infrastructure intervention on bicycling mobility, health and sustainability.
Her research interests are in the field of public health interventions with a focus on physical activity and mental health promotion, e-health and prevention research.

Lotte has established herself as a key figure in the fields of transport poverty and cycling education. She works with a wide range of target groups, from children and adults to non-native speaking youth and people with disabilities.

Rooted in a strong pedagogical background, Lotte brings action and inspiration to everything she does. Her cycling lessons go beyond simply teaching road skills; they spark genuine enthusiasm for cycling and road safety across diverse communities. As Project Officer, she also takes responsibility for training cycling instructors, pilots of shared bicycles, and other volunteers, ensuring her impact reaches far beyond the classroom.

Through her coaching of local educators and volunteers, Lotte continues to leave a lasting mark on cycling culture in Flanders.

Mads is an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Denmark who specialises in quantitative models for cycling. His research covers methodological development and large-scale application within various fields including network design, choice modelling, and traffic simulation. Mads is also a member of the Steering Committee of CRB.

Malte Rothhämel graduated from Technical University in Dresden, Germany, as Diplom-Ingenieur. He undertook an industrial PhD in steering feel and active steering in heavy trucks at Scania and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. After being sent as a guest researcher to Volkswagen Global Research in Wolfsburg, Germany, working on fail-operation chassis concepts for automated heavy vehicles, Malte spent 3.5 years in the development of active steering and back-up steering systems for heavy trucks as well as braking and steering system integration in automated heavy trucks at Scania.
In 2020 he joined KTH in Stockholm as Assistant Professor in Vehicle System Technology, widening the focus including also human powered vehicles. In February 2026 he became Associate Professor.

Malte Schröder is a physicist by training working on complex networked systems with a focus on human mobility. He applies data-driven research and abstract complex system modeling to understand fundamental principles of human mobility, from cycling to self-organized informal transport.

Research assistant in the Networks, Data and Society (NERDS) group at the IT University of Copenhagen.

Research Associate | Integrated Transport Planning

Mark Franke is a Professor in the Centre for Global Social Innovation at Huron University College in London, Ontario, Canada. In previous years he has taught in the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University, the Global and International Studies Program at the University of Northern British Columbia, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria.

Franke's teaching critically engages with cultural, discursive, and ideological formations of subjectivity and social/political relations in world–wide systems, focusing on problems in forced migration, patriarchy, racism, spatial/temporal constructions, mobilities, law, coloniality, citizenship, and governmentality. He is the author of Withdrawal from Immanuel Kant and International Relations: the Global Unlimited_ (Routledge 2024) and Global Limits: Immanuel Kant, International Relations, and Critique of World Politics (SUNY Press, 2001), and has published journal articles and book chapters on questions of refugees' rights, hospitality ethics, politics of movement, politics of critique, neutrality, political geographies of displacement, electronic technologies managing human movement, Indigenous self–determinations in law, and pedagogies of experiential learning. Franke's current program of research studies the politics of bicycling, as a form of modernist mobility that opens possibilities in how social spacings are formed, focusing on objectives in feminist politics, queer activism, antiracism, transportation justice actions, decoloniality, environmentalism, and critical movements in architecture.

Mathieu Rabaud specializes in the upstream design of data collection methodologies and the development of custom surveys focused on mobility. He supports local authorities in conducting their surveys and oversees the processing and analysis of complex databases.
His work focuses on deepening the understanding of the complex factors shaping mobility practices, with a particular emphasis on parking and the use of active transport modes. He regularly presents his methodological and analytical findings at international conferences.

Michael Schmid is a Data Scientist at OST’s Interdisciplinary Center for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI), where he works on applied AI, sensor-based monitoring, IoT systems, and data-driven signal processing. Alongside his technical work, he has a strong personal enthusiasm for cycling, which motivates his interest in using technology to better understand cycling conditions and support safer, more attractive infrastructure. He also teaches in engineering education and develops introductory AI courses for kids.

Niloofar is a PhD candidate in the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Griffith University. Her background is in urban design and planning, focusing on developing connected cycling networks to enhance overall quality of life. Her research interests include active travel, cycling networks, travel behaviour, and tourism. Her current research explores how to maximise cycling outcomes in Olympic and Paralympic Games cities, with a particular focus on leveraging the opportunity of Brisbane 2032.

February 2026 - Juli 2026
Research Internship CROW
September 2024-Juni 2026
University of Twente, Enschede - Master Civil Engineering and Management
September 2019-June 2023
College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, USA - Human Ecology

Paula Del Fiol is an urban planner and researcher working at the intersection of participatory urbanism, mobility, and social inclusion. She is the co-founder of Urbe CoLab, a consultancy focused on collaborative methodologies for people-centered cities in Latin America. Her work explores how collective practices, community engagement, and lived experience can inform urban planning and mobility policies. She works as the technical coordinator of Roda Rosa, a participatory cycling initiative in Fortaleza, Brazil, which combines research, data production, and community-based learning to understand gendered mobility experiences and support more inclusive cycling cultures. Her research interests include bicycle culture, participatory methods, and intersectional approaches to urban mobility.

Peter is emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Chester. He is author of a number of books and edited collections on cycling studies including Cycling: a sociology of vélomobility (2019) and Cycling Activism: bike politics and social movements (2024). The most recent is _Anthropocene Mobilities: sustainable travel and caring for the commons (Bloomsbury 2025)

Philip Kofi Alimo is an early-career transportation researcher working on sustainable transportation systems. He has done cycling projects in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Pratim Sengupta is a Professor of Learning Sciences and a Graduate Faculty of Computational Media Design at the University of Calgary, where he also served as Research Chair for STEM Education. His research on democratizing computational modelling was recognized by an NSF CAREER Award, and his work on public computing was recognized with a Paul D. Fleck Award from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada. His ongoing projects, in collaboration with sociologists and medical scholars are focused on centring voices and participation of newcomer youth (and families) of colour in the context of urban sustainability, especially active mobilities. He is a year-round cyclist and a cycling activist in Calgary, Canada and Kolkata, India.

Environmental Sciences graduate, currently completing a master's in Urban Environmental Management at Wageningen University & Research, specializing in Environmental Policy

raphi soifer (they/them) is a performer, researcher, and avid bike rider whose work explores memories, territories, and dreaming in city spaces. Borne and razed in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA), raphi lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they work as a researcher and translator, in addition to creating solo and collective street-based solo interventions.
raphi holds a BA in Theatre Studies and Anthropology from Yale University, an MA in Arts from Universidade Federal Fluminense, a PhD in Urban Planning from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, and an acute distrust of institutional credentials. Nevertheless, the strictures of late-stage capitalism, together with their love for pedagogical experimentation, has brought them to Universidade Federal Fluminense, Colby College, and the Bard Prison Initiative as a professor of Performance and Cultural Studies. raphi is currently a visiting post-doctoral scholar at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), where they are writing a book on biking, collective memory, and identity in the context of contemporary discourses of so-called "revitalization."

Roland Németh is a PhD student at the Department of Economic and Social Geography, Demography, and Territorial Development at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava. His research focuses on transport geography, with a particular emphasis on cycling. In his dissertation, he evaluates the conditions for cycling and investigates the role of bicycles in a selected urban environment in Slovakia. In the past, he has collaborated with the Cycling Coalition, a Slovak cycling advocacy group, and worked in the cycling coordinator’s office of the Trnava Self-Governing Region. Currently, he is actively collaborating with the city of Trnava, where he conducts his scientific research.

Originary from Tübingen near Stuttgart
Bachelor of Social Sciences (Cologne) and Master of Sustainable Mobility (Dijon)
PhD candidate at TU Berlin sind early 2026

Sonia Soubam is a postdoctoral researcher at University College Dublin and the technical lead of the CREDA project. Her research focuses on sensing systems and human behaviour, with an emphasis on building systems that translate sensing technologies into real-world impact. She holds a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering.

Tim Maurissens is a neurological physical therapist by background. He started his PhD in 2024 within the research group neurorehabilitation of the KU Leuven under supervision of Prof. Dr. Moran Gilat where he focuses on cycling skills and safety in people with Parkinson's disease.

Toby Liu holds an MSc in Transport and City Planning from The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL, where his research on active travel, social dimensions, and behaviour change was awarded the Hounsfield Prize. Originally from Taipei and based in London, his academic work bridges spatial analysis with years of practical insight into user needs from his background in bicycle mechanics. Drawing on a human-centred approach to public engagement, he recently joined Try Before You Bike (PedalUK) to support community outreach and promote sustainable mobility.

Uta Burghard studied social sciences at the Universities of Mannheim, Gießen and Brussels. From 2011 to 2024, she worked as a research associate and project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Karlsruhe, in the field of actors and acceptance in the transformation of the energy system. In 2014, she was a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen, Centre for Transport Research. In 2017, she completed her doctorate at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Faculty of Cultural Studies.
Since June 2024, she has been employed as an academic assistant at the Chair of Cycling at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences.