Keynote speakers

We are very pleased to confirm the following keynote speakers for T2M 2025:  

Mimi Sheller  

Mimi Sheller is a Professor and Dean of the Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, USA. Sheller examines the dynamics of movement, social justice, and migration, and is the author of the influential book Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (2018).

Keynote Title: Mobility Data Justice: Alternative Mobilities in the Age of AI

Abstract: In work with Frauke Behrendt we developed a novel framework for Mobility Data Justice that considers the entanglement of mobility and data with a social justice perspective. More recently we have begun to extend the framework to consider it in relation to automated mobilities and artificial intelligence. This talk will consider key kinopolitical questions for the age of automated AI mobilities, including: What happens when the algorithmic divide collides with the injustices of inequitable mobility regimes shaping alternative mobilities? How do automated mobilities and alternative mobilities interact in ways that reshape the networked terrain of struggles for mobility justice? How might alternative mobilities (including mobile commoning) serve to challenge mobility data injustices that are emerging with algorithmic mobilities?

Carly Gilbert-Patrick   

Carly Gilbert-Patrick has 25 years of experience in project and programme delivery, with the last 16 years dedicated to sustainable mobility. She is the Team Leader for Active Mobility and for Transport Digitalisation and Modal Integration at the UNEP Sustainable Mobility Unit, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.

Transport digitalisation and modal integration – in this portfolio, Carly manages a team working at the intersection of emerging technologies, data, and transport systems, ensuring that digital tools are deployed for the public good, with a focus on vulnerable populations, gender equity, and inclusion. She oversees the application of AI, big data, digital dashboards, and mobility analytics to accelerate emissions reductions, optimize urban transport systems, and inform evidence-based policy. Through this work, she helps governments make informed decisions that balance innovation with inclusivity and sustainability, fast-tracking the delivery of transport solutions that are efficient, safe, and socially equitable.

Carly’s Active Mobility portfolio focuses on promoting walking and cycling as central components of sustainable, low-carbon transport systems. She leads initiatives to strengthen national and city-level policies, guidelines, and investment decisions that prioritize pedestrians and cyclists, ensuring that urban transport systems are safe, accessible, and inclusive. Her work includes developing evidence-based tools, capacity-building programmes, and policy frameworks that integrate active mobility into broader transport and climate strategies

Prior to UNEP, Carly was Programme Manager for the UN-Habitat Sustainable Transport for East African Cities Programme, supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), working with city leaders in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, and Kampala to put in place the enabling governance frameworks to move towards implementing bus rapid transit systems. Before that, she worked for Transport for London as a Project Manager, delivering Mayoral Priority Projects including the London Cycle Hire Scheme and the London Low Emission Zone.

Carly is also actively engaged in global mobility and sustainability initiatives, serving as:

• World Economic Forum Global Futures Council – Council Member
• SLOCAT – Independent Board Member
• UCI – Cycling for All & Sustainable Cycling Commission – Commission Member
• Cities4Children Global Alliance – Member
• Partnership for Active Travel and Health (PATH) – Founding Member

Carly is a British national and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and the Association of Project Management Professional Qualification (APMPQ UK). She lives in Kenya on the outskirts of Nairobi on a farm with her husband, 3 children, 2 dogs , 2 cats and 200 cows.

Keynote Title: From Margins to Mainstream: The Alchemy of Walking and Cycling

Abstract: Walking and cycling are often framed as mobility alternatives—positioned in contrast to the dominance of automobilities. Yet, in much of the Global South, these practices are not marginal but mainstream, forming the majority of everyday trips. The paradox lies in their perception: too often dismissed as low-status, peripheral, or informal mobilities rather than treated as central to just, safe, and sustainable transport systems.

This keynote, From Margins to Mainstream: The Alchemy of Walking and Cycling, uses the lens of Mobility Alternatives and Alternative Mobilities to explore how these modes can be reimagined and elevated. Drawing on African and global examples, it shows how walking and cycling embody both “old” mobilities with deep cultural and historical roots, and “new” mobilities central to climate action, equity, and low-carbon futures.

The talk highlights the critical ingredients that catalyze transformation: political will, targeted investment, urban design that prioritizes people over cars, evidence-based research, and the vibrancy of civil society. When these align, the so-called “alternatives” become drivers of systemic change, challenging the epistemological dominance of automobility and shifting mobility cultures.

Equally, the keynote engages with alternative mobilities—those overlooked, informal, or unregulated practices that flourish outside mainstream planning logics. These practices reveal both barriers and opportunities, shaping mobility justice debates and offering pathways for innovation and resilience.

Attendees will leave with a sense of how incremental and bold actions—from pilots to policy shifts, from grassroots activism to institutional reform—can converge into a broader paradigm shift. Walking and cycling are not fringe options. They are essential mobilities that, with the right mix of attention, resources, and creativity, can thrive as central pillars of inclusive, safe, and sustainable transport futures.

Ruth Oldenziel  

Ruth Oldenziel has been Professor of History of Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology since 2003 and Editor-in-Chief of Technology and Culture since 2020. She earned her PhD in American History at Yale (1992) and is the author and editor of influential works including Making Technology Masculine, “Boys and Their Toys,” “Islands: The Networked Empire of the U.S.,” Cold War Kitchen and the landmark Cycling Cities series. She has secured major international funding and built enduring research networks through projects such as Tensions of Europe, Making Europe and Cycling Cities: The Global Experience. For her scholarship, she has received the Rossiter Prize of the History of Science Society (HSS), the Freeman Award of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the TU Eindhoven Valorization Prize. A bridge- builder between disciplines, countries and generations, Oldenziel has illuminated American culture and politics for Dutch audiences while shaping global conversations on sustainability, mobility and technology.

Peter Norton  

Peter Norton is Associate Professor of History in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia, US, specializing in the history of technology. Peter is interested in walking as a primary mode of personal mobility, and contends that walking did not merely decline but was deterred, devalued and denormalized. Peter’s article “Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street,” published in Technology and Culture, won the Abbot Payson Usher Prize of the Society for the History of Technology. In his first book, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (2008), Peter rejects predominant explanations of mass automobility in the US, such as technological progress, mass demand, or cultural imperatives, attributing it instead to a deliberate effort to overcome prevailing social norms, legal traditions and engineering standards. In his second book, Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving (2021), Peter warns that short historical memories make us vulnerable to false and dangerous promises that amazing technology will somehow make car dependency work. In his keynote, Peter will argue for the practical necessity of history in efforts to promote sustainable, affordable, and healthful personal mobility.

Keynote Title: The Necessity of the Past to Future Mobilities, or The Sleep of History Produces Monsters

Abstract: History is necessary. History is lacking. Today and tomorrow urgently need the pasts you offer. When experts study everyday human mobility patterns without regard to history – no matter the sophistication of their techniques – they can perceive only an atemporal moment. But a moment is composed of history, and cannot be understood in isolation from it. The promoters of transport consumerism manufacture the histories they need, and even the expert specialists, defenseless as they are in the historical void, fall for their inventions. Yes, this is a grim report. But accompanying it is a liberating truth that we historians are best qualified to offer, and that imparts an inspiring urgency to our work: Thanks to history, we know that technology offers us useful tools but no solutions. Thanks to history, we know that sustainable, affordable, healthful, commonsense mobility are historical norms, not futuristic dreams. We don’t need technology we have not yet developed. We don’t require ever more minerals that devastate the communities that extract them. We need not burden future generations with engineering projects they can’t afford or maintain. The history we uncover gives us centuries of vicarious experience that makes us harder to deceive and that gives us more to offer. It permits us to see opportunities that the specialists miss. The sleep of history produces monsters. The awakening of history reveals possibilities. Thank you for waking it up.