Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A new perspective on transportation

Today marks the beginning of my third week at the Rockefeller Foundation, and I am really beginning to get a handle on the organization and my projects. I'm working on 3 separate initiatives that focus on transportation, public health, and future research/awareness. The initiatives are obviously pretty disparate, which is great because it has given me a better feel for the broad work the organization does and a new perspective (and a lot of new information) on these topics.

Last Wednesday, for example, I headed down to DC for a scenario planning conference on transportation with some of our grantee organizations and individuals who work in the transportation and political field. While my job here is primarily focused on research regarding the fundamentals of transportation reform, the conference addressed how to make transportation reform politically possible and palatable in different scenarios. As a Washington outsider, it was amazing to see how the complex (very complex) process of passing legislation relates to the more theoretical research that I am doing on a day-to-day basis.