Managing Director, SMART

Susan Zielinski

Susan Zielinski recently joined CARSS as Managing Director of the SMART project, which stands for Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Research and Transformation. Just before joining SMART / CARSS she spent a year as a Harvard Loeb Fellow focusing on New Mobility innovation and leadership. Susan brings twenty years of experience catalyzing innovative, collaborative partnerships for sustainable transportation and healthy cities. Prior to 2004, Susan co-founded and directed Moving the Economy, a Canada-wide "link tank" that works to catalyse and support multi-sectoral New Mobility (sustainable transportation) industry development. As a transportation planner at the City of Toronto, she worked for over 15 years establishing and leading transportation, green economic development, and air quality policies and initiatives with a primary focus on New Mobility. Among these initiatives are: the City of Toronto Anti-Smog Strategy, the Green Tourism Association, the City of Toronto Bicycle Commuter Program and the Community Bicycle Network, Detour Publications, the Integrated Mobility Systems (IMS) Consortium, the New Mobility Hubs project, and the Urban Goods Movement Initiative. Susan has advised on a range of local and international initiatives, including the National Advisory Committee on Energy Efficiency, Transport Canada's Sustainable Development Advisory Committee, the OECD's Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Project, the jury of the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable Cities, the Gridlock Panel of the Ontario Smart Growth Initiative, the Centre for Sustainable Transportation, the European Conference of Transport Ministers (ECMT), and the Kyoto Cities Initiative International Advisory Panel. After receiving her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto and a Graduate Fellowship to study for a year in France, she received a Masters in Environmental Studies (MES) from York University. She is a Registered Professional Planner (RPP) and member of the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP).