Jorge Diaz-Gutierrez, PhD

Jorge holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in transportation engineering from Penn State and has professional experience in land use planning, transit operations, and traffic management. He is deeply passionate about trains, public transit, multimodal design, and mobility systems. His work focuses on spatial analysis and data-driven transportation solutions that make networks more efficient, sustainable, and equitable. During his graduate studies, Jorge contributed to projects on traffic management, transit policy evaluation, and demand modeling. His master’s research, which he conducted in partnership with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, optimized traffic signal operations at the airport to reduce congestion and improve circulation. For his Ph.D., he collaborated with transit agencies across the U.S. to analyze the impacts of fare-free transit policies on ridership, mode choice, trip frequency and purpose, safety, security, accessibility, and equity. Outside of work, Jorge enjoys going to the gym, exploring new restaurants, running and walking with his dog, and unwinding with anime or PC video games.