For many students, the summer is not just a time to relax from schoolwork, but a chance to find professional development opportunities.  This summer, METRANS Student Assistant Axel Hellman will be interning at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state transportation agency that operates ports, airports, bus terminals, bridges and tunnels in the New York metropolitan area.

Hellman, a New Jersey native, is a recently received his Bachelor’s degree from the Price School in Policy, Planning and Development, and is about to enter the second year of his Master of Planning (MPL) program. He will be working in the agency’s Bridges, Tunnels, and Terminals Division, studying at redevelopment opportunities for tunnel entrance sites in New York and New Jersey.  Hellman shares, “One of the reasons I am excited about this internship opportunity is that it brings together my interests in transportation planning and infill real estate development.”

He also was gratified to learn that the connections of the Trojan Family are still strong, even all the way across the country in New York.  “As soon as I told Professor Eric Shen that I had gotten the internship, he offered to introduce me to former students of his who went on to become planners at the Port Authority,” Hellman said.  “I also learned that coincidentally, two classmates a year above me in the MPL program had interned in the exact same department the year before.  They were glad to provide me some tips on how to do well in my internship.”

Axel Hellman

Axel Hellman is a graduate of the USC Price School with a Bachelor’s degree in Policy, Planning, and Development with a concentration in sustainable planning.  He also enrolled in a progressive degree program, working towards his Master of Planning with a transportation and infrastructure concentration.  His professional interests include transit planning and operations, active transportation, and for-profit and informal transit systems across the world. He can be contacted at [email protected]