Iria Lopez-Carreiro

I am an Assistant Professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and a researcher at the TRANSyT–UPM (Transport Research Centre at UPM). My background combines architecture, urban planning and transport research, with a strong focus on sustainable mobility. I hold a PhD in Urban and Mobility Planning (2021) and a Master’s in City Sciences (2016) from UPM, as well as a Master’s in Architecture (2015) from the Universidad de Navarra. I began my professional career as an urban planner in Ljubljana, Slovenia. That experience gave me first-hand insight into the real-world challenges of implementing planning strategies and led me to realise that I wanted to better understand the systems underpinning urban mobility and human behaviour. This motivated my return to academia in 2017, when I joined TRANSyT–UPM as a pre-doctoral researcher. In 2021, while completing my PhD, I moved into a European innovation environment as a Sustainable Mobility Project Officer within the City Club Team at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) – Urban Mobility. There, I worked with cities and stakeholders across Europe, while continuing my collaboration with TRANSyT–UPM as an external researcher. In 2023, I returned to academia full-time after being awarded a competitive post-doctoral fellowship. This included one year at the Smart Public Transport Lab at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Netherlands, followed by a second year back at TRANSyT–UPM. As a mentor, I would love to bring a perspective shaped by both practice and research, international experience, and movement between academia and applied innovation. I understand that career paths are rarely linear, and I am particularly motivated to support others in navigating transitions and defining their own professional direction.