Phoebe Chiu

Job title: 
Student Assistant
Bio/CV: 
Phoebe Chiu (she/her) is a Student Assistant at the UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) and a Master of City Planning student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. Her work at SafeTREC involves examining the distributional equity of traffic citations issued by the SFMTA’s AB 645 Automated Speed Enforcement Systems Pilot.

Before joining SafeTREC, she was a Research Data Analyst and Events and Operations Coordinator at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Her past research has addressed post-pandemic travel behavior trends among older adults using National Household Travel Survey data, the shortcomings of regional planning processes in meeting SB 375 VMT targets, and the benefits of the LA Metro Transit Ambassador program to transit riders. Conferences and workshops she planned for the two research centers include the 2023 and 2024 Lake Arrowhead Symposiums and events for the FHWA Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles. Outside of research, she has also served in practitioner roles on the Systemwide Planning team at Caltrain and the Capital Finance (currently, Funding Strategy) team at the Oakland Department of Transportation, where she supported projects promoting traffic safety and climate resilience.

Phoebe is also deeply committed to public service and becoming involved in the community. At UC Berkeley, she serves on the board of the Transportation Graduate Students Organizing Committee (TRANSOC) and is a member of UC Berkeley Parking and Transportation’s BayPass Committee. While working in Los Angeles, she led a campaign in the 2024 General Election for John Yi, a former candidate for the State Assembly and Executive Director of Los Angeles Walks. She also previously worked part-time at the Ella Baker Center, a nonprofit organization focused on prison advocacy, where she supported their policy agenda surrounding a report titled “Hidden Hazards: The Impacts of Climate Change on Incarcerated People in California State Prisons.”