Rate My Professor Kelly Bertolaccini

Dr. Kelly Bertolaccini serves as a Lecturer of Transport Engineering in the School of Engineering and Built Environment, specifically within the Civil and Environmental Engineering discipline, at Griffith University. She also holds the position of Engineering First Year Coordinator at the Nathan campus. Bertolaccini earned her Ph.D., M.S. in Civil Engineering, and B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Connecticut in the United States. Her research specializations encompass public transport systems, equitable transport systems, and spatial data and geographic information systems (GIS). She focuses on improving transport access for vulnerable communities, including older people and individuals with disabilities, through human-centered transport engineering and planning. Much of her work in Australia utilizes her GIS expertise. As a member of the Cities Research Institute and the Queensland Accessible Transport Advisory Council, she engages in interdisciplinary collaborations with governments, transport operators, and industry to tackle urban transport challenges.

Bertolaccini's academic career includes doctoral research at the University of Connecticut, where she contributed to studies on transit accessibility, equity, and opportunity indices. Her scholarly impact is evidenced by over 276 citations on Google Scholar. Key publications include 'An analysis of changes to transit accessibility and equity after the introduction of bus rapid transit in Brisbane, Australia' (2018, Journal of Transport and Land Use), 'Improving transit access measures in affordable housing funding criteria' (2021, Transport Policy, with Robert W. Smith and Nicholas E. Lownes), 'A method to define public transit opportunity space' (2013, Journal of Transport Geography), 'Taking steps toward healthy & sustainable transport investment: A systematic review of economic evaluations in the academic literature on large-scale active transport infrastructure' (2024, International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, with Matthew Bland et al.), and 'Incorporating geographic interdependencies into the assessment of transit network resilience' (2024, Journal of Transport Geography, with Georgios Boura et al.). She has received the 2012 Outstanding Student of the Year award from the New England Regional Transportation Center and the Dwight David Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship. In her teaching role, she delivers courses in transport engineering and supervises student projects.