Dr. Karen Trapenberg Frick is Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She also is Director of the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC).
New Book:
Her book is entitled Remaking the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge: A Case Study of Shadowboxing with Nature (Routledge, 2016) and is available at the Routledge website.
Also see these articles on the book by CityLab and UC Berkeley at http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/10/from-250-million-to-65-billion-t... and http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/10/22/sf-oakland-bay-bridge-soaring-costs/
Teaching:
Karen teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in transportation policy and planning, global cities, planning history and theory, and dissertation research design. She was the academic lead for CED's [IN]CITY summer program in sustainable city planning (Also see <http://its.berkeley.edu/btl/2012/fall/InCity>)
Research and Areas of Interest:
She is an expert on sustainable transport and community-based planning and major transportation infrastructure projects. Her current research focuses on conservative, Tea Party and property rights activists' perspectives on planning and planners' responses. She received a "Best Paper of the Year" Award for research on the topic from the Journal of the American Planning Association (at <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2013.885312#.U20kY...)
Research in this area is published in the journal, Urban Studies (at http://usj.sagepub.com/content/52/2/209) which received a "top five" designation, Planning Theory and Practice which was shortlisted for award consideration (at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649357.2015.1125520) and Journal of Planning Education and Research (at <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739456X18773491>).
A short related article is <at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14649357.2018.1479357> and for California Planning and Development Report at <http://www.cp-dr.com/node/3536>.
She also co-curated/edited and contributed to a collection of essays titled “Strengthening Planning’s Effectiveness in a Hyper-Polarized World” at <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649357.2018.1507884>.
Her past research includes an evaluation of variable tolls on the Bay Bridge and an investigation of best practices and challenges related to transport innovations.
Community Partnership and Advising Awards:
Karen is the recipient of a 2016 Award for Outstanding Faculty Advising from UC Berkeley’s Excellence in Advising Awards Program and the 2019 STEM Partner Award with the College of Environmental Design Student of Color (CEDSOC and Low Income First Generation (LIFgen) groups from Self e-STEM. Self e-STEM is a non-profit organization based who provides extensive pipeline STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and mentoring opportunities for elementary to high school girls from untapped communities in the greater Bay Area (<Selfestem.org). Also see <http://www.its.berkeley.edu/node/13420>.
Professional Experience in Planning:
Prior to her University position, Karen was a transportation planner at the San Francisco Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission for nine years where she worked on a wide range of activities including the agency's award-winning Transportation for Livable Communities program, congestion pricing, transport funding and policy, and legislative analysis.
She is an expert on sustainable transport and community-based planning and major transportation infrastructure projects. Her current research focuses on conservative, Tea Party and property rights activists' perspectives on planning and planners' responses
