Urban Planning Student Selected for ENO Leadership Development Conference
Posted on April 12, 2005

Paul Sorensen

Urban Planning second-year student Paul A. Sorensen has been selected to attend the 13th annual Leadership Development Conference on transportation public policy sponsored by the ENO Transportation Foundation. The conference is set for May 23-27 in Washington, D.C.

Sorensen is among only 20 graduate students chosen nationwide to attend the conference where participants will meet with top administration and congressional officials and industrial leaders who carry out, formulate, and influence transportation policy. The intensive five-day conference is designed to give the students a real-world perspective on how transportation policies are drafted, debated, shaped and determined, according to event organizers.

During the selection process, each university was allowed to nominate only one student from a transportation-related discipline. Nomination criteria included student accomplishments, academic program, demonstrated leadership abilities, intent to pursue a career in transportation, and an interest in national transportation issues and the processes for solving them. Sorensen was nominated by Brian Taylor, Associate Professor and Vice Chair of the UCLA School of Public Affairs’ Department of Urban Planning, and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at UCLA.

Sorensen, who holds a doctorate and master’s degree in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a graduate of Dartmouth College where he majored in Computer Science and Geography. At UCLA Sorensen has had the opportunity to work with Professor Taylor in developing a white paper for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) on the technical and political issues associated with current proposals for network-wide, distance-based road user fees. He has also served as a volunteer for the California Hydrogen Highway effort, where he helped to develop optimal fueling station site plans.

The ENO Transportation Foundation was created in 1921 by William Phelps Eno, a pioneer in the field of traffic control. Foundation programs cover all modes of transportation in the public and private sectors.