Dr. Lawson is the Director of the Master’s in Regional Planning Program, she is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, an Affiliated Faculty member of the Department of Informatics, in the College of Computing and Information, and is the Director of the Lewis Mumford Center/Albany Visualization and Informatics Lab.

She received her BA in Accounting and Economics from Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, in 1988. She received her MA in Economics in 1995, MURP in Urban Planning in 1997, and PhD in Urban Studies/Regional Science, in 1998, from Portland State University (PSU), Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Lawson is an active member of the Transportation Research Board, having served six years as Chair of the Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems Committee (ABJ30). She was a member of ABJ30 for nine years, served as Secretary for three years, and received a TRB Blue Ribbon Award for her contributions to urban transportation data collection, analysis, and archiving strategies and the establishment of cutting-edge subcommittees, including Computational Transportation and Society (ABJ30(2)). As Chair, she was also responsible for the Subcommittee on Census Data for Transportation Planning (ABJ30(1)).

Dr. Lawson was as member of the NCHRP Project 20-5, Topic 42-02 Use of U.S. Census Bureau’s Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) by States and Metropolitan Planning Organizations. She has participated in a number of census workshops, including those focused on the American Community Survey and the Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP). She has also been a member of the National Research Council Subcommittee on Data Research since 2004. She is currently a member of the Public Transit Executive Board (AP000), a member of the Data and Information Systems Section(ABJ00), and Chair of the newly formed Joint Subcommittee on Transformative Trends in Transit Data.