piloting cool bus stops in Boston

As a MONUM summer fellow, I worked on launching Boston's Climate Ready Bus Stops - a community-inspired project piloting cooling innovations at bus stops in Boston's hottest and most socially vulnerable areas. My job was to bring these ideas to action.

I conducted a heat, equity, and ridership analysis to prioritize 6-10 pilot demonstration locations, creating a framework to support future bus shelter prioritization efforts. I researched off-the-shelf cooling products the City could install at bus stops and drafted the related procurement documentation. When I learned that most off-the-shelf products would not work in many of Boston's constrained sidewalks, I proposed a Climate Ready Bus Stop Design Hackathon, for community members, designers, and transportation experts to collaborate on place-based cooling solutions.

My work culminated in a presentation to folks in the Mayor's Office, Environment, and Transportation departments, where I outlined the path to evaluate the pilot and integrate successful learnings into the design standards for Boston's future bus stops. The design hackathon and our first off-the-shelf shelter installations are slated for fall of 2023.

This summer solidified my desire to work in the public sector after grad school and affirmed my long-held interest in working in the transportation and climate spaces.