Rate My Professor Sherry Ryan

Sherry Ryan is a professor emerita of city planning in the School of Public Affairs at San Diego State University within the broader field of Social Science. She earned her Ph.D. in Transportation Science from the University of California, Irvine in 1997, with a dissertation on the value of access to highways and light rail transit for industrial and office firms; an M.S. in Civil Engineering from UCI in 1992; and a B.A. in Romance Languages and Latin American Studies from Princeton University in 1987. Ryan joined SDSU in 2002 as an assistant professor in the Graduate Program in City Planning, advancing to associate professor in 2007 and full professor in 2012. She held leadership roles including Director of the School of Public Affairs from 2017, Director of Active Transportation Research from 2013, and Director of the Institute for Public and Urban Affairs from 2013 to 2018. Earlier, she was a visiting and assistant professor at the University of Iowa's Urban and Regional Planning program from 1997 to 1999.

Her research specializes in transportation-land use interactions, the influence of land use patterns on travel behavior, physical activity, and health, active transportation such as bicycling and walking, urban planning and transportation policy, sustainable urban development, gender equity in transportation, and pedestrian and bicycle safety. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals including Urban Studies, Transportation Research Record, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Regional Studies Regional Science, and Journal of Public Transportation. Notable publications include “Incorporating Innovation Metrics in Urban Indices: the Sustain-LED Index” with G. Cantafio (2020), “Minimizing Annual Average Daily Nonmotorized Traffic Estimation Errors” with K. Nordback et al. (2019), “Pedestrian Environments and Transit Ridership” with L. Frank (2009), and “The Value of Access to Highway and Light Rail Transit: Evidence for Industrial and Office Firms” (2005). Ryan has participated in funded grants from NIH, Caltrans, FHWA, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The Walton Family Foundation. She received the 2020 State of California American Planning Association Planning Advocate Award, 2019 Journal of Transportation Research Record Outstanding Paper Award, 2015 Center for Disease Control and Prevention Excellence in Safety Research, and SDSU Most Influential Public Administration Faculty Awards in 2005 and 2011. In practice, she served as project manager for the San Diego Regional Bike Plan, City of San Diego’s Bicycle Master Plan Update (2013), and City of Carlsbad Pedestrian Master Plan, and contributed to university senate, committee service, and boards like Circulate San Diego.