GT student Amanda Wall recognized for transportation policy work

Amanda Wall’s passion for transportation policy has allowed the Georgia Tech grad student to do a lot of traveling this year. It’s also helped her pay for her education.

Wall, 22, has been the recipient of multiple academic awards and scholarships, many of which have catapulted her far away from her Georgia Tech comfort zone.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” said Wall, who earned a civil engineering degree from Georgia Tech this past May. “I’ve had access to some very well-informed, experienced people in the field.”

In May, Wall traveled to Denver, where, as the recipient of the $5,000 Susan D. Banks Memorial Scholarship she met with transportation scholars and members of the WTS, an international organization dedicated to the professional advancement of women in transportation. This fall, the Atlanta chapter of the WTS nominated Wall for the Leadership Legacy Scholarship; that nomination will automatically qualify Wall for a national WTS scholarship competition next spring.

In October, Wall traveled to Seattle, where she was formally recognized by the American Public Transportation Foundation (APTF) with a $4,000 Louis T. Klauder Scholarship. Once again, the aspiring transportation professional was given unprecedented access to some of the towering figures in her chosen field. One of those was Dr. Beverly Scott, the head of MARTA, where Wall had worked as an intern for seven months while she was a Georgia Tech undergraduate.

“When I saw Dr. Scott at the conference she took me under her wing and introduced me to people,” said Wall. “It was great because I had done transportation research for her and I learned so much from her. She was able to show me how things work, day to day, in the industry.”

Though she will not have to travel far to receive her next award (a $950 scholarship from the Georgia Department of Transportation), Wall will be heading for Washington, D.C. in January, where she has been tapped present her paper, entitled “The Regional Sales Tax: An Innovative Approach to State Transportation Finance.”