As Lamis Ashour (PhD ’24) describes it, “urban mobility is the lifeblood of cities and access to transportation is crucial for people to thrive, find jobs, and seize opportunities.” But even as new technological advancements and services (such as rideshares like Uber and Lyft) transform mobility, these opportunities are not always equally accessible to all.
Ashour notes that equity is at the core of her work. In her dissertation, supervised by Prof. Qing Shen and titled Incorporating New Mobility Services into Public Transit in a Post-Pandemic Era: An Integrated Cost-Efficiency and Transportation Equity Perspective, she explores opportunities and barriers to integrating these new options with public transit to improve mobility services. Her goal is work with city planners and agencies to prioritize equity in their decision-making processes, so that everyone has fair access to transportation regardless or income, ability, or location.
Prior to coming to UW, Ashour competed a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering at the University of Jordan and a master’s in sustainable infrastructure in a cooperative program hosted by MIT and Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi. She lived in many places growing up, but considers Jordan — where she spent most of her teenage years — to be home. During her master’s degree, she won a competition led by Etihad Airways that allowed her to work in the US with Thales Group. It was during this time that her passion for the transportation planning field solidified. She also became familiar with the research of UW faculty members Qing Shen and Anne Vernez Moudon; she was thrilled to be accepted into the Interdisciplinary PhD program in Urban Design and Planning at UW and to have the chance to work with both of them.
As she planned and prepared for her big move to Seattle for doctoral study, one additional challenge arose: she and her high school sweetheart got engaged. This meant enduring a long-distance relationship while she was at UW and he completed his medical residency in the UK. But now, she and her husband have settled and built their family in Seattle.
Post graduation, Ashour has accepted an offer to join a consulting firm in Seattle, giving her the opportunity to provide timely analyses and recommendations to transportation decision makers. In the longer term, she is committed to contributing to and advancing research in this field, and is already working with Prof. Shen to prepare her dissertation for publication.