Current members of the Active Travel Academy employed and/or studying at the University of Westminster include:

Patrice Ajai-Ajagbe

Professor Rachel Aldred

Rachel has fifteen years’ experience of researching active travel, and has made contributions to the field in areas including conceptualising and calculating active travel potential, developing methods for evaluation research, near miss studies, applying epidemiological methods to active travel injury risk, and exploring cultures of active travel, including processes of stigmatisation and marginalisation. View her published articles via Google Scholar here.

Kate Bartlett

Athena Brook

Dr. Tom Cohen

Dr. Jamie Furlong

I am a Research Fellow with broad research interests that include active travel interventions, travel behaviour, urban and social policy and urban theory. Currently, I am working on projects analysing the impacts of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in London and the UK more widely. I am typically making tables, graphs, maps or models.

Dr. Harrie Larrington-Spencer

Harrie is a Research Fellow in the Active Travel Academy in the School of Architecture and Cities. She is currently working on the qualitative component of the ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in London’ project, using go along interviews to understand resident experiences of new LTNs in the city. Harrie’s research interests centralise around environmental sustainability with an emphasis on everyday mobility and active travel. She is particularly interested in inclusive environmentalism and the intersection of feminist theory and critical disability studies to inform this work. Harrie’s work and research has stretched across Europe and South and East Asia and involved collaborations with governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as industry.

Dr. Emma Lawlor

Dulce Pedroso

Dulce is a part-time PhD researcher at the University, while working full-time in the field of disaster preparedness as a communications professional. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Communication for Development from Malmö University, a Master of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of Birmingham, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Bristol. In 2021, Dulce was awarded the Justice in and for Active Travel grant for her research on cycling representations and the experience of Women of Colour in the UK cycling culture. Her current PhD research explores the connections between global migration and local mobility justice by examining how urban cycling fosters a sense of belonging for asylum seekers and refugees. Dulce’s passion lies in knowledge translation, and she seeks to bring her expertise in creative communications to bridge the gap between research and practical application.

Dawn Rahman

Dawn Rahman is currently a PhD student in the Active Travel Academy at Westminster University conducting research on mothers who cycle with their children aged 11 and under. She has a degree in Environmental Management, Sociology and Social Anthropology from Keele University and a masters in Environmental Law from the University of Nottingham. Dawn has over 15 years of experience working in transport policy and road safety for a number of different organisations including local authorities, British Cycling and research institutes.

Lorna Stevenson

Lorna is a part-time PhD student, researching the design, evaluation and governance of the UK e-scooter trials. She is interested in the motivations and experiences of local governments delivering this transport innovation and discourses of success for e-scooters. Lorna studied Biology at the University of Oxford then trained as a secondary science teacher. Lorna moved into Higher Education where she was part of an award-winning team improving the use of Widening Participation information in admissions decisions. She completed an MSc in Social Policy (Research) at the LSE, specialising in Education Policy and graduated top of her year. In her professional life Lorna is a researcher at the Education Policy Institute, mainly undertaking quantitative analysis of large administrative datasets. Given her background, Lorna is particularly interested in transport policy as social policy and how the multiple levels of decision-making within transport policy interact. She also enjoys wider public engagement around transport decarbonisation, contributing to citizens assemblies, media articles and industry events.

Asa Thomas

Asa Thomas is a PhD researcher at the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster and has a MSc in Urban Studies from UCL. His research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to study the impacts of and policy processes behind School Streets and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in London. He is interested in how small temporary changes to streets or restrictions on traffic can lead to changes in travel behaviour and the use of public space as well as contribute to a more just transportation system.

Recent Research:

Equity in temporary street closures: The case of London’s Covid-19 ‘School Streets’

Can School Streets Work for New York City?

Changes in motor traffic inside London’s LTNs and on boundary roads

Dr. Ersilia Verlinghieri