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Laura Schewel is the founder and chief executive officer of StreetLight Data, an on-demand mobility analytics platform that is transforming urban planning and transportation design. Originally from Richmond, Virginia, Laura Schewel has dedicated her life to the advanced transportation sector. For her innovations in the transportation and energy solution sector, Laura Schewel was listed in MIT Technology Reviews’ “35 Innovators Under 35” list in 2013.

Education
After graduating with a bachelor's degree in Engineering from Yale in 2006, Schewel worked as a consultant at Rocky Mountain Institute from August 2006 to March 2009. At Rocky Mountain Institute, Schewel worked as a program manager and co-team leader for vehicle electrification and worked on projects to ease the national transition to eclectic mobility. In March 2009, Schewel began as an Energy Innovation Analyst at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision, where she led a team that developed a strategy for the commission on electric vehicles. Shortly after, Schewel returned to school and got her Masters of Science in Energy and Resources from the University of California Berkeley in 2011. While working towards her master's, Schewel founded her startup, Streetlight Data, in 2011. In 2019. Laura Schewel received her Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California Berkeley.

Streetlight Data
History

In 2011, Laura Schewel founded StreetLight Data to create policies that would stimulate the sales of electric vehicles. However, Schwewl faced an inherent challenge facing the infrastructure of transportation data, creating the pain point: there isn't comprehensive and reliable data about where and when people drive.

Schewel saw users' transportation data was being tracked via GPS navigation services and cell phone companies. Schewel eventually persuaded cell phone and GPS navigation companies to sell their user data to her startup. From this data, StreetLight Data could aggregate and analyze the signals from cell phones and GPS navigation systems to create a detailed map of where, when, and how people traveled through cities. This software allowed the StreetLight Data team to type in an address and find the demographics of the people who drive near that location, how frequently, and from where. Due to the algorithm that analyzed the movements of groups, not individuals, the software could not be reverse-engineered to track individuals.

Impact

With hundreds of thousands of projects a month, Streetlight Data analytics is used across 48 states, Mexico, and Canada for transportation analysis. Streetlight Data partners with companies on various projects to provide the necessary data for calculating traffic flow patterns, truck routing , bus safety & commuting patterns , and implementing electric vehicle charging stations.

Streetlight Data software is also utilized in the non-transportation sector. Many restaurant chains, auto repair shops, and medical offices draw on this information to determine strategic locations to place billboards and new retail spaces. Various non-profits, such as Oakland Business Development Corporation, have also used Streetlight Data to encourage small businesses and national chains to open shops in the city's struggling downtown.

Since the creation of Streetlight Data in 2011, the company has diversified its service far beyond trying to stimulate the sale of electric cars. Streetlight Data has several partnerships and strategic alliances inside and outside the transportation industry, such as New Mobility, Retail, Real Estate, Finance, and Outdoor Advertising. In recent years, Streetlight Data has begun expanding its core metrics beyond just cars but to pedestrian and bicycle traffic as well, being the first in the industry to do so.

Jacobs Acquisition of Streetlight Data

In February of 2022, Jacobs, a technical professional services firm with expertise in mobility analytics, announced its acquisition of Streetlight Data. This acquisition allowed Jacobs to utilize Streetlight Data’s powerful analytics to grow end-to-end digital solutions and bring value to customers and stakeholders.