Bike Champ Ambassadors

Meet the team!

We know that the first ride (or rides) on a bike commute can be daunting so we’ve assembled a group of expert bike commuters. Please meet our very first Emory Bike Champ Ambassadors cohort!

They are a group of Emory faculty and staff bike commuters who mentor and support new bike riders, help them plan safe and comfortable bike routes, provide tips and best practices for biking as a commuter, and support them as they start their bike commute journey. Our Bike Champs are committed to strengthening the cycling community here at Emory.

Get matched with one of them today by completing this short form .

Allison Kays

Allison is an assistant professor in the practice of accounting at Emory's Goizueta Business School. She is an avid runner who bikes purely as a commuter. Allison loves her 2.5 mile bike commute because it is efficient, a good de-stresser on the way home, and saves the trees! She notes that the best way to stay committed as a bike commuter is to get rid of your car. When you have no other option, you will keep biking every day :) (the picture below is pre-covid, wearing a buff to stay warm in the winter!)

Douglas Moore

Yerkes hired me as an engineering specialist in February of 2020. I work with a great team of people, problem solving mechanical issues relating to cutting edge research. Forming and welding metals is my area of expertise, and I also get to repair broken equipment which is very satisfying (much like fixing my bike!). Commuting from Scottdale on my e-bike allows me to see parts of the city I’d otherwise miss, like Lullwater Preserve at sunrise. I’m eager to work with you to increase bike commuting in Atlanta.

Peter Shirts

Peter Shirts is the music librarian at Emory. He prioritizes a bike commute because 1) it keeps him active in a sedentary world, 2) oil companies are destroying the world, and 3) have you seen the traffic in Atlanta? When biking isn't feasible, he takes MARTA/Emory shuttles (at least pre-COVID) and as a last resort, a hybrid car. He was inspired to go back to bike commuting by another library employee who lives much further away from campus than he.

Hiram Maxim

I am a professor of German Studies and Linguistics in Emory College and have been commuting to campus since my arrival at Emory in 2007. Despite its reputation as a car-centered city, Atlanta, particularly intown Atlanta, is surprisingly bike-able, and there have been real improvements made in the 14 years I have been here. Hoping to see you out on the city streets, enjoying the beauty of self-propulsion!

Rachel Usher

Rachel Usher is a staff member with the Georgia Climate Project in the Gangarosa Department of Global Environmental Health within the Rollins School of Public Health. She graduated with an MPH in Epidemiology from the Rollins School of Public Health in May 2020. Rachel has been commuting on her bike for more than 5 years for both school and work. Besides using her bike to commute, she loves riding gravel and bike packing with her Surly Straggler. Rachel Is passionate about making bike commuting accessible for all as a sustainable, healthy and fun means of transportation in Atlanta.

Benjamin Kasavan

I first got seriously involved with bicycling while a teenager racing at the Kissena Velodrome in NYC. Since then I have continued my equitable and safe transportation advocacy, founding Emory Bike Social while I was a student, and now serving as a board member of the Emory Employee Cycling Network, and the Treasurer and Board member of SOPO Bicycle Cooperative. If you're interested in learning about getting involved in advocacy or in learning about fixing bikes, let me know!

Eric Reinhart

Eric Reinhardt has been a faculty member in the Dept Political Science at Emory University since 1997. His research and teaching specialty is international economic politics and international institutions. He lives along the Toco Hills-Northlake corridor to the NE of campus in unincorporated DeKalb County. He has been commuting by bike to Emory since 2014 and bikes about 10,000 miles a year with local groups, such as the Decatur Arches & Virginia-Highland Velo clubs.

Paul Ficklin Allred

I have been a bicycle commuter since around 2005. You can read more about my journey in this Emory Report profile: https://tinyurl.com/yxu6loo7

Richard Soulen

I biked to campus when I was a student at Emory in the 1980's. Now I am a professor and I'm still biking to school. One thing that has changed is that now I have an electric bike. I love it because I can commute in my work clothes and not arrive in a sweat. And it's faster (and less expensive) than driving.

Timothy Harrison

Timothy Harrison, Associate Director for CBCT® at the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University. Tim has taught CBCT in many contexts, including in healthcare settings to clinicians at the Cleveland Clinic and to nurses through the Emory Nursing Professional Development Center, to students at the Emory School of Medicine, and chaplains in Emory’s hospitals. He has a professional degree in architecture from Harvard University and practiced design, as well as different approaches to meditation, for two decades before training in CBCT and joining the Compassion Center at Emory in 2013.

Mark Hutcheson

I am Managing Director of the Emory Global Diabetes Research Center and the Georgia Center for Diabetes Translation Research in the Rollins School of Public Health. I have been cycling daily to Emory since 2007 and greatly enjoy how it energizes me by the time I get to work and relaxes me by the time I get back home. It’s not often that you hear someone say that their favorite part of the work day is their commute but that is the case with commuter cycling.