24 Mar What Brought Me Here: Izziy Dowd

Izziy brings experience with anthropology and transit research to Connect the Dots to help create accessible engagement that can connect planners and communities more effectively.

What were you doing before you arrived at Connect the Dots?

An SCMaglev train at JR Central’s test track in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.

Immediately before joining, I was searching for jobs. This is my first full-time position since I graduated from Johns Hopkins, where I studied anthropology. My focus was on ethnography—the modern study of cultures—and a surprising number of my classes leaned into urban issues.

One undergrad project that really solidified my interests was an ethnographic study of Baltimore’s public transit. Instead of a paper, I created a series of mock bus ads to present my findings. I spent time researching the system’s fragmented agencies and riding the buses, talking to commuters. It was really enlightening to see firsthand the gaps in service and infrastructure. That project gave me an inkling that I wanted to work in some way with transit systems.

I later landed an internship with a group advocating for a maglev train line in the Northeast. As part of that, I got to spend two incredible weeks in Japan with a partnering rail company, learning about their operations and even riding a maglev test train. It was a fantastic experience.

After graduating, I spent about a year looking for the right opportunity. I finally found this role through a networking group—someone shared the listing, and it immediately clicked. It felt like a stroke of luck, and I’m very grateful for it.

What drew you to Connect the Dots?

Izziy talks with neighborhood stakeholders at a Spring Garden Street Connector event.

Philly initially attracted me because I have close friends living here. After college, I moved back to Boston, where I grew up, but many of my friends had moved away. When I visited Philadelphia earlier this year, the city just clicked for me. It has an energy that reminds me of Boston and Baltimore. So while finding a job was my priority, finding one in Philadelphia was a major plus.

What really drew me to Connect the Dots, however, was how it connects to my background in anthropology. The core values on the Connect the Dots website strongly align with the mindset I developed as an ethnographer, which is all about respect, being welcoming, and meeting people where they are. So much of what I studied revealed how structural failures happen when planners don’t listen to the people they affect.

This role, at its core, is about bridging that gap. It’s about helping to ensure projects actually serve the people they’re meant for. I know it’s not always easy, but I would much rather try to do this work here than not try at all. It reminds me of a case like Brasília (capital city of Brazil). It was designed from the top down with perfectly separated zones. On paper, it seemed ideal. But in reality, it created a disconnected and isolating city because it never considered how people actually live. That’s exactly why this work is so important: to understand real human experience and needs before making those costly, large-scale decisions.

What do you hope to grow in, expand more of the work that Connect the Dots does or that you do specifically now that you’re here?

A scene from the Spring Garden Street Connector Open House that Izziy helped facilitate.

The main thing I hope to grow in is learning how to apply the tools and concepts I studied academically in a more practical, implementation focused way. I am already learning so much about how to adapt these methods to real-world contexts with all their nuances and constraints.

I am particularly excited to get better at balancing the ideal with the practical. In the real world, you have to work within time and budget limits, so learning how to prioritize, figuring out which aspects are most important to ensure we do the best job possible with the resources we have, is a skill I really want to develop. Ultimately, it is about moving from theory to practice. Even with a hands-on undergraduate experience, there is so much more to learn by actually applying these ideas, and I am looking forward to doing more of that and improving at it.

Izziy is an Associate with experience in public engagement and transit research, specializing in data analysis and accessible outreach.