Job title:
UPS Foundation Professor and Department Chair
Department:
Alumni
City and Regional Planning, Weitzman School of Design
Penn Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Pennsylvania
Bio/CV:
University of Pennsylvania
Advisor: Mark Hansen
Dissertation: Optimal Intercity Transportation Servicies with Heterogeneous Demand and Variable Fuel Price
- Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering
- University of California, Berkeley, 2010
- M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering
- University of California, Berkeley, 2006
- B.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering
- University of Pennsylvania, 2003
Professor Megan S. Ryerson is the UPS Foundation Chair of Transportation and Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electrical & Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Ryerson’s research emphasis is in the area of transportation engineering and planning, with a focus on intercity transportation planning and urban transportation safety. Dr. Ryerson has led research initiatives and published extensively in the area of air transportation, including environmental impacts, economic development, and multimodal planning. In 2024, along with an interdisciplinary team, Dr. Ryerson was awarded a $6M NASA University Leadership Initiative award to study, develop, and deploy solutions for aviation system resilience. In the urban transportation safety area, Dr. Ryerson founded the Center for Safe Mobility under which she focuses on the development of development of novel, human-centered transportation safety metrics as well as the evaluation of safety-focused policies. Dr. Ryerson has published over 65 peer-reviewed articles, won numerous awards for her scholarship and leadership, and counseled major airlines, cities, Universities, airports and Port Authorities, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Dr. Ryerson served as the first Associate Dean for Research at Penn’s Weitzman School of Design from 2018-2023. During this time, she founded the Research Support Center and oversaw the growth of awarded grants by 300%. In 2024, Dr. Ryerson began her tenure as Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning.
Research interests:
Fuel, the environment, and intercity transportation
Reducing transportation network vulnerability
Aviation demand management
Role:
