Joanna Moody

Joanna Moody is the Research Program Manager for the MIT Energy Initiative's Mobility Systems Center: an industry-funded research consortium focused on the complex interactions between advanced technologies, alternative fuels, infrastructure, service models, consumer choice, and government policy and how they may shape the future of passenger and goods movement. Joanna is a co-PI on one of the center's first projects, with the goal of measuring the "option value" of owning a car (including convenience, flexibility, control, and status that comes from having one's own asset) separate from the utility of using a car. Beyond this project, Joanna's research uses econometrics and psychometrics, paired with structural equation modeling, to explore the interactions between policies, attitudes, and individual travel behavior.

Joanna completed her Ph.D. in Transportation with Professor Jinhua Zhao and the JTL Urban Mobility Lab at MIT in 2019. Her dissertation explores the relationships between car pride and car consumption (ownership and use) among individuals in two U.S. cities and across 51 countries. Her other research projects explore how attitudes towards ridehailing services and autonomous vehicles may shape future mobility choices in cities. As a research assistant, she led a team of graduate students researching (1) mobility culture in urban centers around the globe and (2) mobility management instruments in China as part of the MIT Energy Initiative's Mobility of the Future study. Joanna is also a coordinating author of the study's final report, Insights into Future Mobility, which was released in November 2019.

Joanna also completed an M.S. in Transportation from MIT in 2016. Her master's thesis Development of a Predictive Coalition Building Analysis for Stakeholders of Sociotechnical Systems was awarded the Charley V. Wootan award in planning and policy from the Council of University Transportation Centers. During her masters studies, she worked as a research assistant in the Regional Transportation Planning and High-Speed Rail Research Group on a three-year collaborative research project with East Japan Railway Company (JR East) entitled "The Evaluation of International HSR Markets for JR East: A Systems Approach." In her final year on the project, Joanna served as project manager, overseeing a team of undergraduate and graduate research assistants, coordinating all project deliverables, and presenting final results to members of the Executive Board of JR East.