Asha Weinstein Agrawal

Asha Weinstein Agrawal works at San José State University, where she is Director of MTI’s National Transportation Finance Center, the MTI Education Director, and a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Her research agenda is guided by a commitment to the principles of sustainability and equity: what policy and planning tools can communities adopt to encourage environmentally-friendly travel and improve accessibility for people struggling with poverty or other disadvantages?

Dr. Agrawal has researched transportation funding policy for more than 20 years with a focus on holistic evaluation of the pros/cons of different tax and fee options for raising transportation revenues, as well as public opinion about different tax and fee options. Dr. Agrawal has been the lead researcher on numerous state and national public opinion surveys on the topic, and she has also analyzed hundreds of public opinion polls on transportation finance and other transportation topics.

Dr. Agrawal is actively involved with service to the professional planning and policy community. She has been invited to present her research on transportation finance to policymakers at hearings held by the California Transportation Commission and California Senate Transportation Committee, among others. In addition, she is regularly invited to serve on committees and expert panels such as NCHRP Synthesis Project on Forecasting Transportation Revenue Sources: Survey of State Practices (2015) and MTC’s Regional Means-Based Transit Fare Pricing Study Technical Advisory Committee (2015 – 2017).

Dr. Agrawal’s research on contemporary policy issues is regularly cited in the popular media. Stories quoting her or citing her work have appeared in such outlets as The Washington Post (on gas taxes and mileage fees), CBS Evening News (on mileage fees), ABC News/KGO-TV (on mileage fees), the San Diego Union-Tribune (on transit fare policy), WBUR (on the history of traffic congestion), and the San Francisco Chronicle (on transportation taxes).

Doran Barnes

Doran Barnes is Executive Director of Foothill Transit, which serves Eastern Los Angeles County. Foothill Transit is a leader in planning for, acquiring, and operating Zero Emissions Buses. He is a former Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary of the American Public Transportation Association.

Tierra Bills

Tierra Bills is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Public Policy at UCLA. Dr. Bills is a thinker, teacher, and researcher committed to advancing equity is transportation systems and policies. She has over 10 years of experience developing and advancing travel demand and equity analysis methods. She holds a B.S in Civil Engineering Technology from Florida A&M University, and M.S and PhD degrees in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

David Bragdon

David Bragdon is the executive director of TransitCenter. His career spans multiple modes of transportation, in both the public and private sectors. David served nearly eight years as the President of the Metro Council in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area – the only directly elected regional government in the nation, responsible for land use and transportation planning, natural lands conservation, solid waste recycling and disposal, and operation of regional facilities like the Oregon Zoo and Oregon Convention Center. He subsequently assisted New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s update of Gotham’s sustainability plan. Prior to his public service, David worked in the international freight industry, including positions with a cargo airline and a maritime shipping company, where he accomplished tasks like procuring jet fuel in the then-Soviet Union and organizing cotton shipments to Bangladesh. He also drove a taxi for a year. But the buses and subways of New York are his original passion, so he happily joined TransitCenter in 2013 to launch its new philanthropic mission.DA

Felicia James

Felicia James serves as the Associate Administrator for FTA’s Office of Planning and Environment, providing executive direction to all FTA activities relating to transit and transportation planning and environment. The office administers a national program for the metropolitan and statewide planning process, the major capital grants investment program, and environmental programs and policies for all modes of public transit in the United States.

Ms. James previously worked as the Program/Policy Development Team Leader and Manager in the Office of Project Development and Environmental Review at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), where she directed oversight for the development of environmental policy and programs and research funds allocated for specific activities. She has also worked closely with federal agencies and national organization stakeholders on initiatives and emerging issues. 

Therese McMillan

Therese W. McMillan has served since March 2019 as MTC’s Executive Director and as the top executive for the Association of Bay Area Governments. Ms. McMillan, who received her Bachelor of Science degree from U.C. Davis in 1981, a master’s degree in Civil Engineering Science from U.C. Berkeley in 1983, and a master’s in City and Regional Planning from U.C. Berkeley in 1984, previously worked for 25 years at MTC, including more than eight years as MTC’s deputy executive director for Policy before her 2009 appointment by then-President Barack Obama to serve as deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, which was followed by service from 2014 to 2016 as Acting FTA administrator before serving from April 2016 to February 2019 as Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chief planning officer.

Jessica Meaney

Jessica Meaney is the Founder and Executive Director of Investing in Place, an organization committed to transportation investments that strengthens communities. She is a transportation advocate who has been living in Los Angeles for over 20 years, primarily relying on Metro buses to get around in the LA Region.  This personal experience using transit led her to work in the field in transportation policy – ultimately to create Investing in Place to address what she saw as an unmet need for an organization that prioritized the needs and focused on improving the experience (safety, reliability) of mobility for those without access to a private vehicle.  Investing in Place does this through policy research and advocacy, and by a communications effort to provide timely information and education on pending transportation policy and investments decisions in Los Angeles. Investing in Place works to  support a network of elected officials, community organizers and leaders, public agency staff, business leaders and funders to create a collaborative and shared space for efforts to improve mobility options for all throughout the Los Angeles Region – particularly in low income communities and communities of color.

Regan Patterson

Dr. Regan F. Patterson is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles and the PI of the Engineering Environmental Justice Lab. She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include air quality, sustainable transportation, community engagement, and environmental justice. More specifically, Dr. Patterson examines and models the impact of transportation policies and place-based, community-driven interventions on air pollution exposure disparities and environmental justice.

Michael Pimentel

Michael Pimentel is the Executive Director of the California Transit Association, a nonprofit trade organization representing California’s transit industry, including more than 85 public transit agencies in the state. In this role, Michael steers the Association’s advocacy and education efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic and serves as the Association’s chief advisor on policies and programs impacting air quality and the climate.

Prior to joining the Association, Michael held various legislative positions in the Administration of Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. in which he focused on mass transportation issues.

Michael received a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a fellow with the New Leaders Council in 2015 and served on the Advisory Board for the organization’s Sacramento chapter through 2020. He is an active member of the Young Professionals in Transportation – Sacramento.

Robert Puentes

Robert Puentes is President and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation a non-profit think tank with the mission of improving transportation policy and leadership. Prior to joining Eno, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program where he directed the program’s Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. He is currently a non-resident senior fellow with Brookings. Before Brookings, Robert was the director of infrastructure programs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America.

Robert has worked extensively on a variety of transportation issues, including infrastructure funding and finance, and city and urban planning. He is a frequent speaker to a variety of groups, a regular contributor in newspapers and other media, and has testified before Congressional committees. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia where he served on the Alumni Advisory Board, and was an affiliated professor with Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute.

Bruce Robinson

Bruce Robinson is the Associate Administrator for FTA’s Office of Program Management. In that role, he oversees the Office of Transit Programs, the Office of Capital Project Management and the Office of Grants Management and Guidance. Collectively, these offices administer a national program of capital and operating assistance by directing program implementation through FTA’s regional offices. The office provides procedures and program guidance to assist the field staff and grant recipients in grant program administration and grant management requirements and manages FTA’s major project capital oversight programs.

Before taking the Associate Administrator reins in 2019, Mr. Robinson served as the Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Program Management and the Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Research, Demonstration and Innovation. He also served as Acting Associate Administrator for Budget and Policy in 2021.

Susan Shaheen

Susan Shaheen was among the first to research and write about the changing dynamics in shared mobility and likely scenarios automated vehicles might gain prominence. She is a professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), Berkeley and Director of the UC ITS’ Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative. She has a Ph.D. from UC Davis and a M.S. from the University of Rochester.

Jeffrey Tumlin

Jeffrey Tumlin was named Director of Transportation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in December 2019. He oversees the Municipal Railway (Muni), parking, traffic engineering, bicycle and pedestrian safety, transportation accessibility, and taxi regulation for the City & County of San Francisco. 

Jeffrey is the former director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a San Francisco-based transportation planning and engineering firm that focuses on sustainable mobility. Previously he served as Interim Director of the new Oakland Department of Transportation. 

For more than twenty years, he has led station area, downtown, citywide, and campus plans, and delivered various lectures and classes in 20 U.S. states and five countries. His major development projects have succeeded in reducing traffic and CO2 emissions by as much as 40 percent, and accommodated many millions of square feet of growth with no net increase in motor vehicle traffic. These projects have won awards from the U.S. General Services Administration, Institute of Transportation Engineers, American Planning Association, American Society of Landscape Architects, Congress for the New Urbanism, and Urban Land Institute. 

He is the author of Sustainable Transportation: Tools for Creating Healthy, Vibrant and Resilient Communities (Wiley, 2012).

Brian D. Taylor

Brian D. Taylor, PhD, FAICP is a Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Research Fellow in the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. He teaches courses on transportation, land use, and urban form; public transit and shared mobility; and transportation economics, finance, and policy. Professor Taylor studies travel behavior and transportation equity, finance, history, and politics. His recent research examines falling public transit ridership, public sector responses to new transportation technologies, the socio-economic dimensions of travel behavior, the equity of increased local option sales taxes for transportation, the economic effects of traffic congestion, and the transportation policy and equity implications of the SARS-Cov-2 global pandemic.

Veronica Vanterpool

Veronica Vanterpool was appointed Senior Advisor in August 2021. She works directly with the Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration and as a member of the FTA team to advance the policy objectives and goals of the Biden-Harris Administration.

Vanterpool came to FTA from Delaware Transit Corporation, where she served as the agency’s first Chief Innovation Officer. During her time at the agency, she launched the state’s first on-demand microtransit service in a rural community and oversaw the autonomous shuttle demonstration program. Her previous roles include being the Deputy Director of the national Vision Zero Network, executive director of the New York City based Tri-State Transportation Campaign and board member of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Jacob Wasserman

Jacob Wasserman is a Research Project Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. With a background in transportation equity, finance, and demand management, Wasserman coordinates research into public transit and other mobility issues, with recent projects on pre-pandemic transit ridership trends, homelessness in transit environments, and sources and gaps in transit ridership data. Prior to joining ITS, he worked for the Cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Haven on capital budgeting and active transportation. He also served as a Transportation Justice Fellow for Bay Area Rapid Transit Director Lateefah Simon, coordinating passage of the system’s Safe Transit sanctuary policy. Wasserman has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Kari Watkins

Dr. Kari Edison Watkins, P.E., is the Frederick Law Olmsted Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her teaching and research interests revolve around multi-modal transportation planning and the use of technology in transportation, especially as related to transit planning and operations and improved traveler information.

At the University of Washington, Dr. Watkins’ research focused on transit travel time reliability and the effects of transit traveler information. She co-created the OneBusAway program to provide real-time next bus countdown information and other transit information tools for transit riders in greater Seattle-Tacoma. OneBusAway has won numerous awards and Dr. Watkins dissertation was awarded the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Wootan Award for best dissertation in transportation policy and planning. As a long-time cyclist, Dr. Watkins has recently begun to explore cyclist infrastructure preferences through survey research and crowdsourced cycling data through the Cycle Atlanta program. Dr. Watkins was recently recognized by Mass Transit Magazine as a Top 40 under 40 and she is a three-time invitee to the National Academy of Engineers Frontiers of Engineering.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Dr. Watkins worked for a decade as a senior transportation engineer at Wilbur Smith Associates in New Haven, Connecticut. In line with her years in industry, Dr. Watkins’ teaching focus is on including multimodal transportation concepts throughout the curriculum and sending top-notch engineers into the workforce through practical experience in the Senior Capstone course.