Magda Cepeda Zorrilla joined City-REDI in the University of Birmingham as Research Fellow in February 2019. She possess a BSc (Hons) in International Relations (2007-2011) where she wrote a Dissertation aimed to explore the International experience of the use of bicycle to reduce CO2 emissions and how developing countries could access to international funding to implement cycling as a part of the transport system. Following her University studies, she came to the United Kingdom to study her MSc in Sustainability in Transport (2012-2013) in the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) in Leeds. Her dissertation was aimed to investigate the conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists using video footage. After the master she studied a PhD in Transport Studies in the same institute. Her main lines of research are related to the study of the factors that influence individuals’ travel choices and particularly focusing on the strategies to make travel choices more sustainable.
During her PhD she worked as teaching assistant in the School of Geography for the undergraduate module “Inside European Cities” and in the ITS for the graduate modules “Computer Skills QGIS Course” and “Transport Planning and Policy”. In her last year as PhD student, she worked as Research Assistant for the Empower Project EU as part of the team from the ITS assisting in the research of the behavioural responses to novel positive incentives designed to encourage reducing car use. In this role she demonstrated understanding of sustainable travel behaviour and knowledge of sociological and psychological theories to explain people’s behaviour.
Her responsibilities included assisting with the preparation of a multinational survey, ability to design the survey using different online softwares, ability to conduct literature and evidence reviews, advance knowledge of methods for data collection and analysis, management and administration of research projects and initiative to disseminate research findings to academic and non-academic audiences.
After Graduating from her PhD (2014-2017), Magda worked as Graduate Consultant for a Transport Consultancy where she had the opportunity to contribute to diverse projects and also being member of the Green Team. Her responsibilities included analysis of the traffic impact (trip generation, trip distribution and trip assignment) of diverse Planning Applications (Outlined, pre applications, Environmental Scope, etc.) as well as the traffic impact from larger projects such as the HS2 Phase 2b. For the Social Marketing Research team she contributed in two different projects. First, for a Traffic Demand Management project, where she supported the team with the analysis of parking utilisation by mapping the utilisation rates and contributing to the report of findings. The second project was the Statistical Analysis a Public Consultations to inform policy makers.