Her research focuses on travel behavior and addresses cross-cutting policy questions in the fields of planning, education and public health. The travel choices of children have offered a unique perspective to examine these issues. Over the past forty years, rates of walking and biking to school have declined sharply. Dr. McDonald’s research has linked these trends to school planning practices, but has also shown that investments in non-motorized infrastructure have reversed these trends in communities across the United States. Dr. McDonald’s current research examines the impacts of declining licensure and automobility among the millennial generation—those born after 1980. She received an A.B. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.