Professor Laurence Gesell accepted a tenure-track position at Arizona State University in the fall of 1984 and has been a tenured faculty member since 1990. From 1984 to 2005, he taught public policy, management and planning of (air) transportation in the School of Technology in the Engineering College (now the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering). Between 1993 and 2005, he was also affiliated with the College of Architecture (now part of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts) where he taught courses in transportation planning and where he was instrumental in creation of the interdisciplinary graduate program in transportation. Professor Gesell took part in the transition of Williams Air Force Base to a campus of Arizona State University and was the first faculty member to take up residence on the Polytechnic Campus. In 2005, he joined the social sciences faculty in the formation of a program to study the intersection between science, technology and society (STS) within what is now the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.
He has authored 26 books and numerous articles and consultancy reports, mostly dealing with public policy in air transportation. In recognition of his accomplishments in aviation he was inducted into the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame in 2008. Now teaching STS, his latest book is "Science, Evolution and Religious Persuasion" (2017), which is for readers caught in the middle and perplexed by the science versus religion debate. At the heart of the dilemma is whether in the normative view God, or an otherwise intelligent designer created the world, or in the positive perspective whether a god was even necessary in a natural, seemingly random, evolutionary process. His research and teaching interests include: justice, law and society; ethical foundations of law; science, technology and society; social ecological evolution; transportation systems management and planning; public policy and regulation.