Iryna Bondarenko is a Research Associate on the Health and Road Safety team at the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. She supports road safety and sustainable mobility initiatives through research, planning, and policy development at local, regional, and national levels.

Before joining WRI, Iryna worked with international organizations, nonprofits, and consultancies, including the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations Development Programme, Egis, and the Center for Environmental Initiatives Ecoaction. Her projects have covered a range of topics, such as bicycle strategies and master plans, sustainable mobility and parking policies, and transport decarbonization. She has conducted fieldwork and planning in Ukraine, Germany, and the United States, and has co-authored high-level policy papers and technical reports.

Iryna holds a Master’s degree in Community Planning from the University of Maryland, where she was a Fulbright Fellow, as well as graduate certificates in Data Science from the Ukrainian Catholic University. She has also received fellowships from the Edmund S. Muskie and DAAD programs.

Originally from Ukraine, Iryna now lives in Appalachia. She enjoys analyzing data in R, exploring national parks, and embroidering traditional Ukrainian shirts.