Geraldine Knatz

Biography

Geraldine Knatz is Professor of the Practice of Policy and Engineering, a joint appointment between the USC Price School of Public Policy and the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. At the Price School, she teaches and conducts research through the METRANS Transportation Center.
Dr. Knatz served as Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles from 2006 to January 2014, becoming the first woman to hold the position. She led the development and implementation of the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, an ambitious program that reduced air emissions from port operations by more than 70 percent in five years and is recognized globally for its innovation and impact. Before joining the Port of Los Angeles, Dr. Knatz served as Managing Director of the Port of Long Beach, where she spearheaded major environmental initiatives, including the Green Port Policy and the Truck Trip Reduction Program.
Dr. Knatz has held numerous leadership roles on national and international boards. She is a former member of the Viterbi School of Engineering Board of Councilors, past president of both the American Association of Port Authorities and the International Association of Ports and Harbors and founding chairman of the World Port Climate Initiative. She served ten years on the California Ocean Protection Council as a gubernatorial appointee. She is currently a member of the Council of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academies Marine Board and was formerly a member of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). She initiated the project now known as AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles and serves as a trustee on its board, as well as its past Chairman. She also serves on the board of Dewberry Engineering.
Internationally recognized for her contributions, Dr. Knatz has received numerous awards, including Outstanding Women in Transportation (Journal of Commerce, 2007), Woman Executive of the Year (Los Angeles Business Journal, 2007), the Compass Award (Women’s Leadership Exchange, 2008), an honorary doctorate from Maine Maritime Academy (2009), and the Peter Benchley Ocean Award (Blue Frontier Campaign, 2012). In 2014, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for her global leadership in developing environmentally clean urban seaports.
In 2016, she received the Bruckman Award for Excellence from the Los Angeles Public Library for her co-authored book, Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor. She later received a Haynes Foundation grant to write a political history of the Port of Los Angeles, published as Port of Los Angeles: Conflict, Commerce, and the Fight for Control.
Knatz’s career has been featured in several popular books, most notably in Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Edward Humes’s Door to Door and David Helvarg’s The Golden Shore.