As of September 1, 2012, the University Transportation Center for Mobility (UTCM) is no longer an active center of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. The archived UTCM website remains available here.

Conference on Performance Measures for Transportation and Livable Communities

SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2011 • AUSTIN, TEXAS


SPEAKERS

Note: Speaker bios are being added upon receipt.

Bruce Appleyard

University of Utah

Gina Baas

Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota
Gina Baas is Assistant Director, Education and Outreach, for the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS). In this position, she is responsible for leading the delivery of education and outreach initiatives on behalf of the Center. This includes directing projects and programs to administer conferences and events; develop and maintain Web sites, electronic newsletters, and other communications/information products; and coordinate and support stakeholder committees working on specific transportation topics and issues. Baas also leads the Center's communications strategic planning efforts and media relations. In the area of education services, she collaborates with faculty, industry and student associations, and transportation practitioners to strengthen transportation education at the university, including outreach to post-secondary students and minorities and women to pursue transportation careers. Baas directs initiatives that support undergraduate and graduate students, that reach out to K-12 students, and that maintain connections with alumni.

Prior to joining the Center's staff in 1997, Baas was a project manager for a market research firm, C.J. Olson Market Research, and for a transportation consulting firm, LJR, Inc. Transportation Consultants and Planners; she also served in a variety of positions in the Minnesota office of U.S. Senator David Durenberger for six years. Baas holds a BS degree in political science with a minor in American history from the University of Iowa.

In 2010, Baas became a member of the Transportation Research Board's Transportation Education and Training Committee. She is also active in the Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS), serving as co-chair of the International Membership Development Committee and on the Minnesota chapter board of directors for five years in various leadership positions, including as President. Baas was a participant in the 2005-2006 cohort of the University of Minnesota President's Emerging Leaders program.

Nathan Belz

Transportation Research Center, University of Vermont
Nathan received his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from the University of Maine. He began pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Vermont in 2008 where his research focuses on characterizing second-by-second driving style, transportation applications of GIS, driver behavior and gap-acceptance at roundabouts, and operational analysis and microsimulation of roundabout traffic. Mr. Belz marries his professional and personal commitment to transportation and sustainability by volunteering for CarShare Vermont, a non-profit organization that provides an affordable, convenient, and reliable alternative to private car ownership.

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Chandra Bhat

University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Chandra R. Bhat is the Adnan Abou-Ayyash Centennial Professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Chandra is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading expert in the subject area of travel demand modeling and travel behavior analysis. His methodological research interests and expertise are in the areas of statistical, econometric, and mathematical modeling of traffic conditions and consumer behavior. His methodological works are widely referenced in the economics, marketing, geography, statistics, and transportation fields. Dr. Bhat has been interested in built environment effects particularly in the context of travel behavior and safety considerations. His recent work on teenager driver behavior and safety has received media coverage both in Texas and nationally.

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Lynne Bly

Minnesota Department of Transportation

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Brian Bochner

Texas Transportation Institute
Mr. Bochner previously served as Manager of TTI's System Planning Program and Center for Air Quality Studies. Now working part time after retiring, he has over 40 years experience in transportation planning and engineering. Mr. Bochner has been involved in air quality since the Houston area's first transportation air quality planning in early 1980's, preparing transportation control measures analysis for the Houston-Galveston Area Council. Mr. Bochner's areas of expertise include transportation air quality policy analysis and statewide public education and outreach programs supporting the Texas Department of Transportation and Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission's emissions reducing programs and policies.

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Marc Brenman

Social Justice Consultancy
Marc Brenman was Executive Director of the Washington State Human Rights Commission from 2004 to 2009, and Senior Policy Advisor for Civil Rights in the Secretary's Office of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1995 to 2004. He was previously with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education, in Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco. He is the author of the book The Right to Transportation, with Tom Sanchez. He has his own consulting and training firm, Social Justice Consultancy, and serves as Senior Policy Advisor to The City Project in Los Angeles. In 2010, he assisted Public Advocates, Inc. with winning the only civil rights case under ARRA, a transportation equity case in the San Francisco Bay Area, for $70 million.

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Mark Brezina

Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fort Worth, TX

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Martin Catala

Center for Urban Transportation Research, University of South Florida

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Linda Cherrington

Texas Transportation Institute

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David Crout

Portland TriMet
David is currently employed as an operations analyst with TriMet. He is involved in AVL data mining and analysis, safety analysis, automatic stop announcements, transit signal priority, and real-time customer information. David previously served as a Census data analyst at the University of Massachusetts, and as a transportation planner with Snohomish County, Wasbington.

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Angela Dluger

Federal Transit Administration

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Fred Dock

City of Pasadena, CA

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Suzie Edrington

Texas Transportation Institute
Suzie is an assistant research scientist for the Transit Mobility Program at the Texas Transportation Institute and has over 21 years of transportation experience, with 16 years of hands-on public transit experience with the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, TX (METRO) in both the paratransit and fixed route operations and maintenance divisions. During her METRO career, Suzie's responsibilities included operational performance analysis, service forecasting, manpower planning, capital investment forecasting, ADA compliance, financial analysis, contract management, and National Transit Database reporting. Since joining TTI in 2006, Suzie has applied her practical experience to a variety of projects. Suzie recently earned a master of science in urban and regional planning with a certificate in transportation planning - studies include designing for sustainable transportation, complete-streets, form-based codes, transit-oriented development, transportation investments, shared parking generation.

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John Elias

U.S. Department of Transportation

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Kirk Fauver

FHWA Texas Division
Kirk Fauver has served as the statewide planning engineer for the FHWA Texas Division Office over the past ten years based in Austin, Texas from 2001-2011. Over the past 21-years Kirk has worked within the Federal Highway Administration as a transportation planner and urban transportation engineer, and as an Air Quality Specialist. He has worked within the FHWA California, Illlinois, Iowa, and Texas Division Offices, including an assignment in Washington, D.C. within the Air Quality Policy Team in the Office of Environment and Planning.

As part of his FHWA HQ's assignment, Kirk worked on developing transportation conformity and global climate change guidance documents and materials and also on the reauthorization of the CMAQ emissions reduction program as part of the TEA-21. During his HQ's assignment, Kirk also worked with the President's Council on Sustainable Development as a transportation specialist. Kirk is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and is a graduate of the University of Louisville's Speed Scientific School in 1987 (B.S., Civil Engineering) and 1988 (M.Engr, Civil Engineering). He is also a 1991 graduate of the Highway Engineering Training Program (HETP) within the Federal Highway Administration. Kirk is currently on a special assignment with the FHWA HQ's Office of Freight Management and Operations.

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Christopher V. Forinash

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Chris rejoined the US EPA's Office of Sustainable Communities in early 2011 on assignment from the non-profit Northeast-Midwest Institute, having previously worked in EPA's smart growth program from 2000-2006. His work focuses on the intersection between smart growth and sustainable transportation systems, including street and transit network design, complete streets, parking policy, all aspects of walkability, and the broad mix of federal, state, and local policies and private-sector actions that help create them. At Northeast-Midwest Institute, Chris analyzed federal policy and develops recommendations for the states in those regions. In addition to his professional work, Chris has served as an appointed member of the Arlington County (Virginia) Transportation Commission, advising elected officials on their award-winning smart growth policies, and as an elected civic association officer. Prior to his work for US EPA, Chris worked for an international engineering firm developing and implementing regional travel demand forecasting models. He earned two engineering degrees focusing on transportation, a bachelor's from Duke University and Master's from Northwestern University.

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Lucy Galbraith

Capital Area Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, TX

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Norman Garrick

University of Connecticut

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Anna Gartsman and Jessica Casey

Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Northeastern University
Jessica and Anna are researchers at the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, located in Boston, MA. In Fall 2011, the Dukakis Center will offer its first Transportation Report Card, which will establish performance metrics for accessibility, equity, affordability, and convenience related to transportation in the Greater Boston region. Outside of the Dukakis Center, Jessica is getting her Master's in Urban and Regional Policy, and Anna is working on her PhD in Criminology, and both are interested in spatial analysis and mapping.

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Keith Gates

Federal Transit Administration

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Tom Gerend

Mid-America Regional Council, Kansas City, MO
Tom Gerend is the Assistant Director of Transportation for the Mid-America Regional Council where he is responsible for overseeing the development of the Region's Long Range Transportation Plan and guiding the development and implementation of the Smart Moves regional transit strategy. Tom attended Iowa State University where he received a Bachelor's of Science in Community and Regional Planning, and went on to receive his Master's in Business Administration from University of Illinois.

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Eric Gleason

Texas Department of Transportation

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Greg Griffin

Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Austin, TX
Greg Griffin, AICP is a senior planner with the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, and an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Geography at Texas State University-San Marcos. His work at CAMPO emphasizes integrating active transportation and public participation in planning and project implementation. Greg has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners since 2005, and bikes with his son to school daily.

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Andrew Guthrie

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Andrew Guthrie is a research fellow at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the Humphrey School, and specializes in research on major transit projects and their social equity implications.

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Todd Hemingson

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, TX

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David Hitchcock

Houston Advanced Research Center
Mr. Hitchcock is an urban and regional planner with more than 35 years of experience addressing a wide range of urban development, energy and environmental issues. Since joining HARC in 1989, he has served as the Associate Director of the Center for Global Studies, the Deputy Director of the Environment Group and Senior Project Director. Mr. Hitchcock is involved in transportation, environmental and energy projects and programs that address sustainable development, energy, and air quality. He has directed the Texas Joint Center for Air Quality, HARC's Cool Houston Program, Texas hydrogen and fuel cell initiatives, regional urban forest studies, alternative and low carbon transportation fuels projects, and HARC air quality research projects and programs. Mr. Hitchcock currently serves on the Coordinating Committee for the Houston region's sustainable communities planning program. He has served on the Regional Air Quality Planning Committee for the Houston region and the Transportation Research Board's Alternative Fuels Committee. He has authored several reports on sustainable development and environmental improvement in the Houston region. Prior to joining HARC, Mr. Hitchcock served as the Director of the Joint Center for Urban Mobility Research at Rice Center in Houston. Mr. Hitchcock has a B.A., Sociology, Oklahoma State University; a M.R.C.P. (Regional and City Planning), University of Oklahoma; and a Ph.D. (coursework only), Environmental Health/Urban Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

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Joan Hudson, P.E.

Texas Transportation Institute
Joan Hudson joined TTI in 2001 to assist the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) with their Congestion Management Program (CMP) program. With funding from the TTI Center for Transportation Safety, Ms. Hudson has worked on several safety-related projects. She compared residential speed limits to fatal crash rates in the U.S. and conducted an in-depth evaluation on the use of photo speed enforcement in reduced speed school zones. She continues to be involved in safety-related projects by assisting the Austin District of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) with crash analyses. In the past several years, Ms. Hudson has expanded her work to include bicyclist and pedestrian safety research for TxDOT, CAMPO and the City of Austin. Prior to her employment with TTI, Ms Hudson worked for the City of Austin's Department of Public Works and Transportation.

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Genevieve Hutchison

Regional Transit District, Denver, CO

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Michael Iacono

University of Minnesota
Michael Iacono is a research fellow in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he has worked for the past five years. He is a member of the NeXuS research group, which conducts research on a broad range of topics related to transportation networks, economics, and urban systems. His research interests center around travel behavior and transportation policy, planning and economics, with an emphasis on the evaluation of transportation systems.

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Lance Jennings

Transportation Research Center, University of Vermont

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Kevin Johns

City of Austin, TX

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Robert C. Johns

Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

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Valerie Knepper

Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco Bay Area
Valerie Knepper has been analyzing transportation policies for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for 25 years. She was instrumental in developing the requirements for local zoning to support regional transit investments in the Bay Area. She is currently focusing on reforming parking policies to support smart growth. She has a Masters in Public Policy from U.C. Berkeley, with an emphasis on urban economics, and a bachelor's degree in psychology.

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Bruce Landis

Sprinkle Consulting, Inc.

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Leigh Blackmon Lane

Center for Transportation and the Environment, North Carolina State University
Leigh Blackmon Lane is a Senior Research Associate with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) at North Carolina State University. She has 25 years of experience in transportation planning, development, training and most recently policy research, planning and implementation. Her practitioner experience working for a state Department of Transportation combined with 10 years of planning and policy level research has led to unique opportunities to explore challenges and opportunities related to understanding and implementing livability and sustainability concepts within transportation. As an example, Leigh is currently serving as the lead researcher to assist the North Carolina DOT with developing, implementing and monitoring a department-wide sustainability blueprint. In addition, Leigh has recently been selected as the principal investigator for FHWA's livability performance measures handbook and searchable indicators database. Leigh has served as principal investigator on numerous National Cooperation Highway Research Projects and her expertise and qualifications has lead to the appointment of one of AASHTO's environmental excellence experts in the areas of Community Impact Assessment and Context Sensitive Solutions. She was also appointed as Chair of the Transportation Research Board's Social, Economic and Cultural Issues Section which includes the Sustainability and Transportation Committee. Ms. Lane has a degree in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University.

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Tim Lomax, Ph.D., P.E.

Texas Transportation Institute
Dr. Lomax has been extensively involved in urban mobility research for more than 30 years. He developed and applied a methodology to assess areawide traffic congestion levels and congestion costs. The Urban Mobility Report includes information on 90 cities throughout the U.S. and examines trends in urban area mobility and documents the effect of transportation investments. A related pooled-fund research project has developed several performance measures and analytical techniques to describe mobility to a wide range of audiences including transportation professionals, public policy decision-makers, the media and the general public. Dr. Lomax has also been involved in developing and evaluating a wide range of solutions to mobility problems, including high-occupancy vehicle facilities, and in improving decision-making processes and performance measurement. He also played a role in the regional and statewide congestion analyses and in developing principles and performance measures to evaluate and communicate solution strategies.

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Richard Lopez

Department of Housing and Urban Development, San Antonio

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Christopher McCahill

University of Connecticut
Chris McCahill is a researcher and instructor in transportation and urban engineering at the University of Connecticut. He is the recipient of a New England University Transportation Center Fellowship and a Graduate Predoctoral Fellowship. Since 2007, he has presented his work for the Transportation Research Board, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the Institute for Mobility Research in Munich, and for local community interest and professional groups. He is working towards completing his Ph.D. dissertation in early 2012.

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Laurie McGinnis

Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota

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Mike McGurrin

Noblis, Inc.

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Chad McKeown

North Central Texas Council of Governments
Chad McKeown is a Principal Transportation Planner for the Transportation Department of the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG). NCTCOG serves as the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Dallas-Fort Worth Area. Chad has been with NCTCOG since August of 1998. He currently serves as the Corridor Studies Manager for roadway projects. In this role, Chad coordinates the development of regional travel model data used in the evaluation of current and future traffic congestion, the analysis of corridor study alternatives, and the documentation of potential environmental and social impacts related to roadway projects. Chad serves as the project manager for several ongoing major corridor studies and provides support to the development of thoroughfare plans, the Metropolitan Transportation Plan, and regional environmental analyses.

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Antoinette Quagliata

Federal Transit Administration

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Tara Ramani

Texas Transportation Institute
Ms. Ramani is a researcher in the Environment and Air Quality Division at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). Since joining TTI in 2006, Ms. Ramani has worked on numerous projects involving transportation sustainability, performance measurement, planning, air quality, and emissions testing. Her particular areas of interest and expertise are in sustainability and performance measurement for transportation. Ms. Ramani is the Principal Investigator and key researcher on a number of state and national projects covering topics such as performance measurement for transportation planning and operations, sustainability performance measures for transportation agencies, and developing sustainable transportation performance measures for strategic planning.

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Paula Reeves

Washington State Department of Transportation
Paula has been developing transportation projects for the State, cities, counties and transit agencies for 20 years. She currently manages the Community Design Assistance Branch at Washington State Department of Transportation. She provides a range of transportation planning and engineering services to cities, counties and transit agencies including: expert advice regarding transportation and livable communities, pedestrian and bicycle facility design expertise, safe routes to schools, scenic byways and transportation planning support relative to Washington's Growth Management Act. Paula's specialty areas include urban design and transportation planning and engineering. She is also a practicing mediator in Thurston County, Washington and serves on the National Transportation Research Board's Pedestrian Committee, American Institute of Certified Planners' Community Planning Committee, and the Board of Directors for American Planning Association Washington Chapter.

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Jennifer Ronk

Houston Advanced Research Center
Ms. Ronk is an environmental scientist with more than 20 years of experience addressing a wide range of environmental issues. Ms. Ronk works on several sustainable transportation initiatives, including electric vehicle planning for the City of Houston, bikeshare planning for the City of Houston, and Texas future fuels research. Prior to joining HARC, Ms. Ronk was the Deputy Director of the REIL Network, a think tank for clean energy and climate change issues across the globe. Ms. Ronk has a B.S in Geology from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and a M.E.M. (Environmental Management) from the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

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Elizabeth Sanford

Cambridge Systematics, Inc.

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Ingrid E. Schneider, PhD

Professor in Forest Resources and Director of the Tourism Center, University of Minnesota
With a primary focus on visitor/community behavior and attitudes, Dr. Schneider works with various national, state, and local organizations to understand and plan for enhanced visitor management. Schneider has published a variety of refereed journal articles, crafted numerous technical reports, and made presentations in a variety of academic and other professional settings in the U.S. and beyond. Ingrid teaches and does research on recreation resource visitors, nature-based tourists and the communities and organizations that host them. Current projects include transportation and the quality of life for the MN DOT, scenic byway awareness for the MN Byway Partnerships, RECopedia for the USDA Forest Service and Parks and Trails planning for the MN legislature. Among other writing projects, she's currently guest editing a special issue of Park Science focused on wilderness management.

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Sam Seskin

CH2M Hill

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Kim Slaughter

Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, TX
Kimberly Slaughter is the Senior Vice President of Service Design & Development for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County. In this role, she is responsible for all of the long and short range service planning, system planning, environmental planning, ridership analysis and reporting, service and facility evaluation, and strategic public engagement. Ms. Slaughter has over 20 years of transportation planning experience in both the public and private sector.

Throughout her career, Ms. Slaughter has managed and provided expert resources for many projects in the area of transit operations planning & analysis, travel forecasting, public involvement, air quality conformity, federal funding, alternative analyses, environmental impact statements, and interagency coordination. In addition to her work in travel demand modeling, Ms. Slaughter has played an important role as a METRO representative in the community. Among her accomplishments in this arena, she was a member of the Millennium Mobility Plan Education Team, which worked to educate the public on the potential for light rail operations in Houston and was a key member of the team that achieved the successful METRO Solutions public referendum in 2003. She also served on the Technical Working Group Committee for Mobile Source Modeling, a statewide air quality transportation conformity committee that facilitates continuous communication and coordination between TxDOT, FHWA, FTA, TNRCC, EPA, MPOs and transit agencies for air quality non-attainment and near non-attainment areas.

Kimberly has a Bachelor of Arts in Government/Pre-Law and a Masters of Science in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas in Austin. She is a board member the American Public Transportation Authority (APTA) and the Greater 288 Partnership.

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Carissa Schively Slotterback

Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Carissa Schively Slotterback is an associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning Program in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research is focused on decision making and public engagement approaches in environmental, land use, and transportation planning. She has a particular interests in sustainability and impact assessment approaches. In addition to her academic credentials, she has worked a planner in the public and private sectors. She is currently a Faculty Scholar with the University of Minnesota's Center for Transportation Studies and a Resident Fellow in the Institute on the Environment.

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Kartik Sribarra

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

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Beverly Storey

Texas Transportation Institute
Beverly Storey serves as manager for TTI's Environmental Management Program. She has over 18 years of experience designing, developing, improving, and analyzing the functions of the roadside. Her areas of expertise include managing the effects of design and implementation upon the natural systems within transportation corridors. Ms. Storey recently completed the development of outreach materials for the Federal Highway Administration/Environmental Protection Agency sponsored "Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach" which serves as a guide to be used in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) green book in the design of urban street improvements.

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Mark Stout

Consultant
Mark Stout is an independent consultant providing support to state DOTs, advocacy groups, and nonprofits in such fields as transportation and land use, transportation and climate change, transportation policy, and transportation finance. Dr. Stout was formerly with the New Jersey Department of Transportation, serving as Assistant Commissioner for Planning.

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Jeff Taebel

Houston-Galveston Area Council

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Jim Thorne

Federal Highway Administration
Jim is a member of the Planning Technical Service Team at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Resource Center. The Planning Team provides technical assistance and training on a wide range of planning topics. Recent projects for Jim are related to integration of land use and transportation, scenario planning, climate change, livability, transportation safety planning and a number of other diverse topics that show up in the wonderfully exciting world of transportation planning. Prior to joining FHWA, Jim worked with two Metropolitan Planning Organizations as a planner, modeler, and transportation planning director. He also worked with the American Public Works Association as Research Associate and Director of Research and produced a number of technical publications.

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Kevin Tilbury

Gresham, Smith and Partners
Kevin Tilbury is a Principal at Gresham, Smith & Partners, where he leads the firmwide planning practice. Mr. Tilbury has over 15 years of experience in transportation and land use planning working with agencies at the local, regional, state and federal levels. He is currently leading his firm's efforts in the Knoxville Regional Plan for Livable Development in the Knoxville, TN region and a long range transportation and sustainability plan in the Little Rock, AR region.

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Brigid Tuck

Center for Tourism, University of Minnesota
Brigid Tuck is the analyst/writer for the Economic Impact Analysis program at University of Minnesota Extension. She has worked extensively on economic impact studies and collaborates regularly with the Tourism Center.

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Katie Turnbull, PhD

Texas Transportation Institute
Dr. Katherine F. Turnbull is an Executive Associate Director at the Texas Transportation Institute, a part of the Texas A&M University System. In addition, Dr. Turnbull is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. Dr. Turnbull's research focuses on high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) facilities, transit, transportation planning, travel demand management (TDM), and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). She is an active member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). She served as Chair of the TRB HOV Committee for 6 years and currently Chairs ITE's Transit Council. She is also a member of the ITS America Coordinating Council.

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ShawnTurner, PE

Texas Transportation Institute
Shawn M. Turner is a Senior Research Engineer for the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) in College Station, Texas. Mr. Turner conducts and manages pedestrian and bicyclist research projects for several different research sponsors. His most recent research has been related to pedestrian and bicyclist safety and behavioral evaluations, usage monitoring, and planning methods and tools. In his 20 years at TTI, Mr. Turner has been involved in a variety of pedestrian and bicyclist activities, from advising federal agencies on a national research agenda, to lecturing in university courses on pedestrian and bicycle transportation, to instructing bicycle safety classes in his local community.

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Maulik Vaishnav

Arup

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Mariah VanZerr

CH2M Hill
Mariah VanZerr is a transportation planner with CH2M HILL in Portland, Oregon and has experience developing sustainability rating systems and evaluation frameworks for transportation projects and plans. Mariah holds a Masters Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University and a Masters Certificate in Environmental Policy from Bard College. Mariah is currently working on a project to develop a Least Cost Planning Tool for the Oregon Department of Transportation and served as the lead author of a research paper conducted to recommend a set of livability and quality of life indicators for inclusion in the tool.

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Betty Voights

Capital Area Council of Governments, Austin, TX
Betty Voights has spent the majority of her career working on local government issues in positions at the city, state, and now regional level. Her government experience was preceded by four years in the news media as a reporter for two South Texas newspapers from 1977-1981.

Ms. Voights started a public sector career with the City of Harlingen where she spent eight years overseeing planning, housing, community and economic development, and left in 1990 to become Manager of the Small Business Division at the Texas Department of Commerce. She was promoted in 1993 to become the Assistant Director then in 1995 to the Director of the Business Development Division overseeing business recruitment, international business, community development, and four foreign offices.

In 1996 Ms. Voights joined the Capital Area Council of Governments as their second executive director since the COG's 1970 inception. While she has continued her focus on economic development and planning at a regional level, Ms. Voights also manages programs in emergency communications, homeland security, aging services, rural transportation planning, criminal justice, solid waste, law enforcement training, and air quality.

Currently Ms. Voights serves on the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council executive board, the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center State Advisory Board, the Envision Central Texas executive board, the Southwest EDA Region Task Force, the National Association of Development Organizations board of directors, and the National Association of Regional Councils' Economic Development Committee. She also chairs the Emergency Communications Committee for Texas Association of Regional Councils.

Ms. Voights has a Bachelors Degree in Journalism and Business from Texas A&M - Kingsville and is a graduate of the Economic Development Institute at University of Oklahoma.

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Kirk Watson

Texas State Senate

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Linda Watson

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, TX

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Jason  Zheng

University of Connecticut
Jason Zheng graduated in May, 2011 from the University of Connecticut with a Master's degree in transportation and urban engineering. In addition to his engineering background, Jason has strong interests in economics and urban planning.

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Joe Zietsman, PhD, PE

Texas Transportation Institute
Dr. Zietsman is the Head of the Environment and Air Quality Division of the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). He is also a member of the Graduate Faculty of Texas A&M University and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas. He holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University. He has more than 20 years of professional experience in the field of transportation engineering. His specific research interests are in sustainable transportation, air quality, climate change, and performance measurement. He is also an active member of the Transportation Research Board where he serves on three committees and chairs two subcommittees.

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