Reflections on CTS at 40: Kaitlyn Denten

CTS has been instrumental in shaping my career path in transportation, and provided the foundation for my career in research. 

As a first year graduate student, I stumbled upon a position on CTS’s Accessibility Observatory to work on the Access Across America project. I spent the majority of my time throughout graduate school working with the Observatory, researching data sources to measure key destinations like grocery stores and healthcare for Access Across America, and exploring transportation access in the Appalachia region through the Access in Appalachia Pilot Implementation Project.

Conducting research at CTS helped me develop concrete skills and allowed me to contribute to research projects with real-world implications for access. This experience pushed me to think deeper about data — what it inherently includes or excludes, who is included and who is not, and how that affects people’s lives day-to-day.

Now, as a researcher at the Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance, CTS works with our program by fostering connections and providing expertise. The academia-to-industry connection provided by CTS allows my group to continue to be at the forefront of transportation — in the projects that we study, and with the students that we train to lead the industry in the future.

I am grateful to be a CTS Scholar, and for the connections the center facilitates between researchers and practitioners to deliver impactful work, whether it’s at the annual Research Conference or through developing a research question through the Applied Research in Transportation and other programs.

I am thankful to CTS for jumpstarting my career in transportation research, and look forward to continually engaging with the center to dig deeper and push the boundaries of transportation.

August 2026

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