Former FTA Chief Fernandez Honored at TRB Meeting
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WASHINGTON — Nuria Fernandez, former chief at the Federal Transit Administration whose portfolio includes implementing aspects of 2021’s bipartisan infrastructure law, was among the officials honored at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting.
Event organizers presented Fernandez with the Frank Turner Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Transportation. The former FTA leader during President Joe Biden’s tenure touted the administration’s investments linked to the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“I want to give a special thanks to the leadership at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration for supporting me as we advanced the important work of planning, designing and helping build transportation infrastructure to improve America’s communities,” Fernandez, currently president and CEO of AMDC Consulting, told the TRB audience Jan. 8.
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According to background information TRB provided, during three years as the head of FTA, Fernandez “led the agency in making transformative investments and creating policies that made public transportation stronger and safer nationwide.”
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“Shortly after rejoining FTA in 2021, Fernandez took over leadership of the federal transit response to the impacts of the COVID-19 public health emergency on transit. This included a focus on maintaining safe travel for the transit workforce that moved frontline workers to and from their jobs; implementing transit practices that reduced COVID-19-related illness and fatalities; and coordinating the award of more than $70 billion in federal COVID-19 emergency recovery funds,” per TRB.
Other honorees at TRB included Rolf Schmitt, recipient of the Robert E. Skinner, Jr. Distinguished Transportation Research Management Award; Halil Ceylan, recipient of the Roy W. Crum Award; and Chandra Bhat, recipient of the W.N. Carey, Jr. Distinguished Service Award.
“TRB has been at the center of action in the transportation field. The profession as a whole is driven by thoughts and conversations that start here, that begin here thanks to the amazing diversity of stakeholders and participants who partake in this annual transportation pilgrimage,” said Bhat, a distinguished teaching professor with the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “So as we go forward, let’s continue to use this diversity to contribute to our transportation systems but by extension also to the social, moral and empathetic fabric of our society.”
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Ceylan, a professor with the Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Department at Iowa State University, called on the transportation community to maintain its focus on progress. As he put it, “I encourage all of us to embrace inclusiveness and unity as we look to the future. Diverse perspectives and collaborative efforts are keys to addressing our transportation and infrastructure challenges.” Per TRB, Ceylan’s work “includes developing next-generation electrically conductive concrete and asphalt for self-heating and applying artificial intelligence to transportation infrastructure system performance modeling and design optimization. He has also conducted life cycle cost and environmental analysis of transportation infrastructure systems and developed guidelines and specifications to support transportation infrastructure system innovations.”
Schmitt is deputy director at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Thousands of stakeholders, policymakers, academics and agency officials attended the 104th TRB annual meeting Jan. 5-9 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
