Adonia Lugo, Ph.D.

Adonia Lugo

Position Title
California Transportation Commission

Bio

Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo, PhD, was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in the transition to sustainable transportation and collaborated to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Her book, Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance, came out in 2018. Adonia is Equity Research Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and a core organizer of The Untokening. In May 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her to the California Transportation Commission.