Tom Vanderbilt

About Tom Vanderbilt

Tom Vanderbilt writes on a variety of subjects for many publications, including Wired, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times, The Economist, Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, The Wilson Quarterly, Artforum, Rolling Stone, among others. He is contributing editor to Outside, Wired UK, Artforum and the design magazine Print. He has also been a contributing writer to the popular blog Design Observer, and “Transport” columnist for Slate magazine. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K. and territories, and by publishers in 18 other countries. He has consulted for a variety of companies, from ad agencies to Fortune 500 corporations, and lectured at a variety of institutions around the world, from the Eero Saarinen Lecture at Yale University’s School of Architecture to the Australasian Road Safety Conference in Canberra. He has appeared on a wide variety of radio and television programs around the world, including NBC’s Today Show, ABC News’ Nightline, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air with Teri Gross, the BBC’s World Service and The One Show, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fox Business, and CNN’s Business Today, among many others. He is a Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, and has received fellowships from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visiting Arts, the Design Trust for Public Space, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. He is also a member of the U.S. Department of Interior’s Cold War Advisory Committee, a group studying the identification of sites and resources significant to the Cold War.

Experience

1. Columnist

   Slate Magazine

   Jan 2009 — Present

Education

• University of Wisconsin-Madison

  BA, History, Political Science

  1986 — 1991