Mollie Cohen D'Agostino

Picture of Mollie D'agostino

Executive Director, MoSAIC, Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis
Policy Director, Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy
Policy Director, 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program

Mollie Cohen D'Agostino a founding Director of the Mobility Science, Automation and Inclusion Center (MoSAIC), an exciting new Center at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies partnering with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to expand technical capacity on connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and related public policy strategies.

Mollie has a Master’s in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Political Science and Environmental studies from the University of Michigan. These credentials have enabled her to take on policy leadership roles within ITS-Davis and the broader UC community. For example, Mollie serves as the Chair of the ITS-Davis Policy Collaborative, an internal organization that aim to expand the impact of ITS-Davis research. She also served for 3 years as the Policy Lead for emerging technology, public transit and shared mobility, for the UC Institute of Transportation Studies- where she stewarded research from Institutes at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Irvine. 

Mollie’s recent publications have focused on automated vehicle policy, mobility data, equitable congestion pricing, and transit payment innovations. (See below for a list of recent publications.) She also works to produce briefs and events that synthesize academic research findings to inform policy makers and practitioners.

Her commitment to public service was formed prior to joining UC Davis, where she worked at the local level with the the Alameda County Transportation Commission, City of Oakland’s At-large City Council member, and the City of Oakland Department of Housing and Community Development. Her early career was spent in state environmental advocacy for the California Environmental Voters (formerly California League of Conservation Voters), where she saw forward the passage of the state’s landmark climate bill, AB 32. In her free time Mollie is also an avid public transit enthusiast, and was appointed to serve on the Yolo County Transportation District’s Citizen Advisory Committee. She has served on several climate planning committees in the Northern California region.

Relevant Research and Publications

Automated Vehicle Policy analysis: These research projects are part of a larger strategic effort at UC Davis to proactively address the pressing policy issues for the AuV sector, and to produce research that is timely, relevant and valuable, reflecting key policy and regulatory issues facing the AV industry including emissions, equity, data/ accountability, connectivity, etc. Many of these projects were funded in part by the State of California, by way of annual funding to the UC Institute of Transportation studies (UC ITS). The California Strategic Growth Commission was also an additional funding partner associated with the California Automated Vehicle strategies paper.

  • D’Agostino, M.C.; Michael, C.E; Ramos, M. “A Blueprint for Improving Automated Driving System Safety” UC Institute of Transportation Studies. July 2024 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/46d6d86x 
  • D'Agostino, M.C.; Michael, C.E; Venkataram, P. “Experiences with Autonomous Vehicle in U.S. Cities” UC Institute of Transportation Studies May 2024. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rk148nr 
  • Jaller, M., Otero-Palencia, C., & D’Agostino, M. (2022). Jobs and Automated Freight Transportation: How Automation Affects the Freight Industry and What to Do About It. UC Davis: National Center for Sustainable Transportation. http://dx.doi.org/10.7922/G2SX6BHW Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0vk5t0rw
  • D’Agostino M.and Francisco, S Shaheen, and D. Sperling, “California automated vehicle policystrategies,” in UC Davis: Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6s59c5b7.
  • M. D’Agostino, K. Fleming, K. White, M. Scribner, and B. Feigenbaum, “Policy and regulation of automated vehicles: Spotlight on u.s. federal and states,” in Road Vehicle Automation 8, G. Meyer and S. Beiker, Eds., Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022, pp. 22–39.

Mobility Data Sharing Policy Analysis: These projects reflect a series of collaborations with UCLA and other colleagues to respond to urgent interest from public sector stakeholders in California about how best to pursue data sharing agreements with shared mobility providers. The state of California, through UC ITS sponsored the “Sharing Mobility Data” paper, and the UC Davis Policy Institute sponsored the “Mobility Data sharing…” project.  

  • D’Agostino M. C Pellaton and A Brown, “Mobility data sharing: Challenges and policy recommendations,”in UC Davis: Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gw8g9ms.
  • Matute, J., D'Agostino, M.C, & Brown, A. (2020). Sharing Mobility Data for Planning and Policy Research. UC Office of the President: University of California Institute of Transportation Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.7922/G2ZG6QHH Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/88p873g4

Road and Congestion Pricing Policy Analysis: This series of projects reflect research that shows how congestion pricing can be an equitable policy strategy, and how different cities are considering congestion-related road pricing policies, cataloguing cities who have studied but not yet implemented congestion pricing. These were also sponsored by the state of California, by way of UC ITS.

  • Colner, J. P, & Cohen D’Agostino, M. (2023). How Seven Cities Are Exploring Congestion Pricing Strategies. UC Office of the President: University of California Institute of Transportation Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.7922/G2Z60MDW Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4q87j713
  • Cohen D’Agostino, M., Pellaton, P., & White, B. (2020). Equitable Congestion Pricing. UC Office of the President: University of California Institute of Transportation Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.7922/G2RF5S92 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/17h3k4db

Shared mobility, Micromobility, Climate & Transportation Policy Analysis: These projects reflect our team’s effort to address gaps in the literature on shared mobility, and transportation decarbonization topics. We investigated federal and state transportation decarbonization efforts, as well as completing an analysis of early effort to tax ridehailing service providers, referred to in California statute as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft. This research recognized the possible pathways for TNC impacts, which could improve transportation sustainability if they facilitated more pooled travel and public transit use. We also studied micromobility policies using ten case study cities. These projects were sponsored by the UC Davis Policy Institute, the National Center for Sustainable Transportation, and the Pacific Southwest Regional University Transportation Center (UTC) made possible by the US Department of Transportation. 

 

Education and Degree(s)
  • Masters in Public Policy (M.P.P.) , UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy
  • Bachelors of Arts (B.A) Political Science & Program in the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor