Dr. Kari Watkins

Biography

Dr. Kari Edison Watkins is an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington, where her research focused on transit travel time reliability and the effects of transit traveler information. Dr. Watkins co-created the OneBusAway program, which provides real-time bus countdown information and has won numerous awards. Her dissertation was awarded the Council of University Transportation Centers Wootan Award for excellence in transportation policy planning. In addition to her research on multimodal transportation planning and technology-use in transportation, she has explored cyclist infrastructure preferences through survey research and crowdsourced data in the Cycle Atlanta program. Dr. Watkins is a recognized expert in her field, having been named one of Mass Transit Magazine's Top 40 Under 40 and is a three-time invitee to the National Academy of Engineers Frontiers of Engineering. Prior to her academic career, she worked for a decade as a senior transportation engineer at Wilbur Smith Associates in New Haven, Connecticut. Her teaching focuses on preparing engineering students with practical experiences, particularly within the context of multimodal transportation concepts and the Senior Capstone course.

Research Interests

Experience