Liisa Ecola is a senior policy analyst at RAND, currently managing the research process for the Center on AI, Security, and Technology. In this role, she oversees over 50 active projects.
In her previous role, she was a transportation planner with 20+ years of experience and broad interests in transportation funding, traffic safety, and long-term mobility trends. She led RAND's “Road to Zero” project, a long-term vision of eliminating traffic crash deaths by 2050, and work for the Transportation Research Board on the future of airports. For the CDC, she helped develop and later update a tool to determine the costs and benefits of policies to reduce vehicle crash deaths and injuries. She led RAND's transportation work on the long-term hurricane recovery plan for Puerto Rico, and analyzed the impacts of climate change on transportation for DHS. She is the lead author of two reports about long-term mobility—one on the future of driving in developing countries, and the other on future mobility in China—and coauthor of a third on the potential impacts of technology on transportation demand in the United Kingdom. She has conducted extensive work in smart growth, managing the National Award for Smart Growth Achievement for EPA for five years.
Before joining RAND, Ecola worked in transportation, land use, and policy consulting; she also served as a Foreign Service officer for six years, stationed in Warsaw and Taipei. Ecola received her Master of City Planning degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
M.C.P. in city planning, University of California, Berkeley; M.A. in political science, Emory University; B.A. in international relations, Emory University
