From 1997 to her retirement in 2014, Phyllis was active in promoting safe and sustainable transportation as a staff researcher and editor at UC Berkeley’s SafeTREC, the Institute of Transportation Studies and the Department of City and Regional Planning . She has worked with leading researchers on subjects like active transportation, safe streets and city planning strategies that complement efforts to reduce VMT by encouraging walking, biking and transit ridership.

Under a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, she compiled and posted online the California Active Transportation Information Pages (CATSIP.berkeley.edu), which includes a comprehensive catalog of state pedestrian and bicycle plans and other resources to promote evidence-based active transportation practices In Berkeley, she has been an active volunteer for bicycle advocacy, including the all-volunteer bike ride, Kidical Mass, whose most recent event drew upwards of 600 participants on a ride through the Berkeley flats. She has also advocated for infill housing and dense development in Berkeley, especially in its high-resourced neighborhoods.

A longtime gardener, she is a founding member of nearly 20 years’ standing of Schoolhouse Creek Common, a largely native plant garden operated by neighborhood volunteers in conjunction with the Berkeley Unified School district.

Her other board and commission work includes membership on the Berkeley Commission on Aging, chairmanship of the Caltrans D4 Pedestrian Advisory Committee and, most recently, the San Francisco Sierra Club representative on the Alameda County Transportation Commission’s Independent Watchdog Committee.

Before moving to Berkeley, she worked as a journalist in Baltimore, Washington, New York, Berkeley, San Francisco and San Diego, at Baltimore City Paper, Washington City Paper, New York Press, East Bay Express, San Diego Reader, and SF Weekly.

She received her B.A. cum laude in Philosophy and Literature from Yale University.