Sam Speroni is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a lecturer in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning, and an affiliated researcher with the Los Angeles Education Research Institute. His research examines how transportation systems and public policy shape children’s access to education, with a particular emphasis on K–12 school transportation, transportation funding, and travel behavior.

His dissertation examined how state and local school transportation policies shape the availability and funding of transportation services and, in turn, children’s access to educational opportunities. More broadly, his research bridges transportation and education policy to understand how public institutions shape mobility and opportunity for children and families.

Speroni’s scholarship has appeared in leading transportation, planning, and education journals, including Transportation, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, the Journal of the American Planning Association, and AERA Open. His research has been supported by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. He holds a PhD and a master’s degree in urban planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Brown University. Before his doctoral studies, Speroni was a high school English teacher and school administrator in Charlotte, North Carolina.