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PhD Candidate

Emily Wells

PhD Candidate, Engineering and Public Policy program at Carnegie Mellon University

Emily is a PhD candidate in the Engineering and Public Policy program at Carnegie Mellon University. She studies people’s values and preferences in making transportation decisions in the Bay Area, using both geospatial data and decision analysis methods. She is looking forward to expanding her interests to community resilience, and linking transportation decisions to their environmental impacts.

Emily’s experiences with government and policy helped gear her interests towards environment and policy management. During an experience as a researcher with the Risk and Decision Science team within the US Army Corps of Engineers, Emily was able to see how decision science methods were able to translate well across a breadth of topics. Some projects she worked on include community resilience within the army, as well as the societal costs and benefits of bioethanol research. She is excited to continue honing her skills in decision and geospatial analysis to make impacts in the future.

“I’m really motivated to ask research questions that can be implemented through public policy. I want to learn how to bridge the gap between academic research and policy decision making.”

Emily is a big fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, skiing, supporting her friends in local rock/punk bands, and is excited to get use of her first road bike.