New faculty member Justin Beaudoin is coming to PPPA from Colgate University, where he spent the 2015-16 academic year as a visiting faculty member after completing his PhD at the University of California, Davis in 2015. Justin obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of British Columbia. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies at UC Davis, he worked for two years as an economic consultant in Toronto, Canada, with an emphasis on projects relating to transportation issues for the Canadian Federal and Provincial governments.

Justin’s research primarily focuses on regional economic issues related to transportation and the environment. His dissertation focused on evaluating the effect of public transit investments on traffic congestion and air quality. One theme of this line of research is how public infrastructure investment decisions are affected by other related government policies and regulations that are in place. In the future, Justin plans to continue researching transportation and the associated environmental aspects, while also integrating other urban economic issues such as housing markets and land-use effects. Justin is particularly excited about UWT’s role as an urban-serving university and the potential for integrating his research with questions of interest to local residents and policymakers.