Emmett Z. McKinney works at the nexus of mobility, climate change, and social equity.
His master’s thesis examined how emergent mobility technologies and open data interact with structural racism in Los Angeles. This research revealed that equity demands not only the fair distribution of resources — but of power. Open data frameworks like the Mobility Data Specification create new possibilities for co-design, as well as new hazards.
As a Fellow at Civic Design Center, he designed pedestrian / bicycle facilities as well as developed resources for community-led tactical urbanism. Most recently, he studied how the physics of movement define the potential of new mobility to reshape cities.
His passion for sustainable mobility started in Los Angeles, where he grew up riding bikes with his Dad. The freedom, the sunshine, the sense of possibility: these are the experiences that drive (or, more accurately, pedal) his passion today.
A #NUMTOT at heart, Emmett has collaborated on projects in many domains that shape urban mobility. Key planning projects focused on community engagement, data visualization, infrastructure finance, and climate resilience.
Prior to MIT, Emmett was a Research Associate at the Environmental Law Institute, as well as a researcher at Vanderbilt University Law School. He has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Planning Education and Research and Energy Efficiency, and contributed to several books and reports on environmental governance.
Emmett holds a Master in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a dual Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and French from Vanderbilt University.
Software: ArcGIS | QGIS | PostgreSQL | PostGIS | R Shiny | Adobe Creative Suite | Leaflet | Mapbox | Microsoft Office
Digital Languages: SQL | R | HTML | CSS | JavaScript (beginner)
Human Languages: French (Fluent) | Spanish (Proficient) | English (Native)
Other Skills Participatory Action Research, Policy Research, Legal Analysis, Writing, Project Management