Left to Right: Plenary Panel Moderator Camilo Pablon-Almanza, Advisor at the International Transport Forum of the OECD, with Dean Mimi Sheller (WPI), Ms. Bernadette Bergsma, Director of Communications and EU Affairs at EIT Urban Mobility, and Dr. Jaeyoul Kim of EY Strategy and Consulting, Japan. Other panelist not pictured: Chen Chen, Director of Transport at the Asian Development Bank.
On September 9th-11th, Dean of The Global School Mimi Sheller was a keynote speaker at the 2025 Global Mobility Conference in Seoul, South Korea. She addressed the plenary session “Mobility Innovation as a Catalyst for Inclusive Societies” with a talk on mobility justice.
The Global Mobility Conference convenes leaders, experts, policymakers, innovators and researchers who seek to advance the innovation strategies for future mobility within an inclusive, resilient, safe and accessible transportation system. It included not only discussion of the latest autonomous cars, artificial intelligence applied to transport systems, and new aerial vehicles, but also mobility rights, mobility justice, and social inclusion, which are core foci of WPI’s Mobility Justice Lab. You can view international news coverage of the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfOJnOe3Qcg
While in Seoul, Sheller was also appointed as Distinguished Advisor of the Academy of Mobility Humanities (AMH) at Konkuk University, a group responsible for translating her book Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (2018) into Korean in 2024. Sheller also served as discussant for a conference panel organized by the AMH, experienced a ride on the GTX-A express subway train (175 km/hr), and visited the Hyundai Expo Center to view the latest hydrogen fuel-cell cars and interactive exhibits on the future of mobility automation and aerial transport.
Before arriving in Seoul, Sheller also gave an invited lecture on September 8th at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, where two faculty members plan to translate Sheller’s book Advanced Introduction to Mobilities (2021) into Japanese in 2026.
Sheller (center) with faculty and students at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, holding two of her books (in the front row) which have been widely read in Japan.
Sheller also was invited to speak at the conference “New Territorialities of Governance in the Anthropocene",September 12-13th at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University.
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