Lora Byala, AICP founded Foursquare ITP in 2006 and has led the company’s growth from just herself, to a few employees in her living room, to nearly 70 staff across several offices. As President & CEO, she is responsible for guiding Foursquare ITP’s strategic direction, company culture, operations, business development, staff development, and more. Lora is also a recognized expert in transit planning and transportation strategic planning with more than 25 years of experience in the transportation field. Prior to founding Foursquare ITP Lora was the Regional Planning Manager for WMATA. She holds a Master’s degree in transportation from MIT and Bachelor degrees in Transportation Systems Engineering and Urban Studies the University of Pennsylvania.

Raka Choudhury is the Director of Bus Priority at WMATA (Metro). In this role, Raka leads Metro’s coordination efforts with jurisdictions in the DC Metro area to design and implement bus lanes and queue jumps, and manages key bus priority initiatives like Transit Signal Priority, Clear Lanes, and All Door Boarding.

Raka’s 20+ years of work experience spans the public and private sector primarily in the DC region working at the intersection of land use and transit. Bus lane projects that she has led or worked on include the H & I and 14^th Street bus lanes in DC, and Metroway and West End Transitway in Alexandria. Most recently, she coordinated with Montgomery County and Maryland State Highway Administration to deliver 7.5 lane miles of pop-up bus lanes on Georgia Avenue during the summer 2024 Red Line shutdown. She led the launch of Clear Lanes in DC in November 2023, which is the automated camera enforcement of bus lanes and the first in the nation to enforce bus stops.

Raka is keenly aware of the critical role transit plays in mitigating climate change and the urgency of that mission drives her work every day.

Allison Davis is Metro’s Senior Vice President of Planning and Sustainability. She oversees a team who guides Metro’s medium- and long-term transit vision, analyzes ridership and travel behavior, transitions to zero emissions buses, prioritizes buses, modernizes the fare system, and creates a more sustainable, affordable, equitable region. She is currently leading the Better Bus Network Redesign to rethink, redesign, and revitalize Metrobus into a fast, frequent, reliable, affordable service that feels unified to the customer. Previously, she was a consultant for engineering and planning firms in New York and Tokyo. She graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University and serves on the Coalition for Smarter Growth’s Champions Council.

Tiffany Dubinsky is the Director of Transit Planning at the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT). She has over 15 years of experience in the industry, having previously served as a Statewide Transit Planning Manager at DRPT, a Principal and Senior Transportation Planner at the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission, and Regional Planner for the Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission.  Her responsibilities include innovation and transit technology, grants management, statewide transit and multimodal planning, and MPO coordination. Tiffany has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University and an undergraduate degree in Public Administration from James Madison University.

With over 20 years of experience, Lee Farmer has focused her career on planning and implementing transportation solutions in support of local and regional plans and policies. She currently serves as VHB’s Project Development Manager for Transit & Rail in the DC region. In this role, she works with multi-disciplinary teams to successfully transition projects from planning into engineering by integrating NEPA, Alternatives Analysis, and Preliminary Engineering. She previously served as Transit Capital Program Manager with the City of Alexandria where she ensured the successful implementation of Virginia’s first bus rapid transit service (Metroway) and managed the planning process for the Potomac Yard Metrorail Station. Lee’s appreciation for the importance of transportation to quality of life began as a high schooler in Pittsburgh, where the city’s robust bus system gave her the freedom to explore the city.

Amy Mesrobian is the Director of Zero-Emission Vehicles for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, leading the strategy and planning for the transformation of Metro’s fleet of nearly 1,600 buses to zero-emission buses.

Prior to Metro, Amy was a supervisor at the California Public Utilities Commission, a state agency that regulates energy utilities, overseeing the development and implementation of a number of climate and equity policy areas. At the CPUC, Amy also worked on utility charging infrastructure programs, electricity rates, and incentives for electric vehicles.

Amy holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia.

Jason Mumford, P.E., AICP, joined STV as vice president and planning director in the Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Division in 2020. Mumford serves as the lead of STV’s planning group in the Mid-Atlantic region and also assists in growing the firm’s transit and rail planning practice nationally.

Most recently, Mumford served as a vice president in transportation for a leading multinational engineering firm. Among the many projects Mumford has managed are the Crystal City-Potomac Yard Transitway, the first operational bus rapid transit line in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; the Broad Run Station Expansion Project for Virginia Railway Express; and the Metrorail Station Access and Capacity Program for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Mumford received his Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from University of Utah and his master’s degree in city planning from University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of American Public Transportation Association, Transportation Research Board, and American Planning Association.

Raymond Mui is the Chief Infrastructure and Development Officer of the Alexandria Transit Company, known as DASH, in Alexandria, Virginia. DASH operates fixed route public transit services in the City of Alexandria and surrounding communities, with a goal to convert its fleet of 115 buses to 100% Zero Emissions by 2037. In his role, Raymond oversees several departments of DASH including Planning, Finance, and Marketing. In addition, Raymond leads all Capital Programs and the Zero Emissions Fleet Program at DASH, leading the largest deployment of Battery Electric Buses in Virginia and one of the largest in the DC Metropolitan Region.

Raymond is an alumnus of Purdue University, an honoree of Mass Transit Magazine’s 40 under 40, and a graduate of Leadership APTA.

Tom Reynolds is the Maintenance Section Chief in the Transit Services Division at the Fairfax County Department of Transportation. He is responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the Fairfax Connector fleet and the County’s transit facilities. The Connector currently has 12 battery-electric buses in service under a pilot program.

Tom has 39 years of transit experience in Chicago, Des Moines, Charlotte, Harrisburg (PA) and the DC Circulator. Tom’s interest in clean technologies began with the Chicago Transit Authority’s Fuel Cell Bus Demonstration in 1996, and since then he has been involved with hybrid technologies and other clean fuels. Tom also spent 20 years as an elected official in local government.

Robert A. “Bob” Schneider, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission (PRTC), which operates as OmniRide. With the goal of moving more people to reduce traffic congestion in the region, OmniRide provides commuter and local bus services as well as ridesharing services in Prince William County, the City of Manassas, and the City of Manassas Park.  PRTC also co-sponsors the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) in partnership with the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC).

Before joining OmniRide, Bob was Executive Director at The COMET in Columbia, South Carolina, General Manager at ValleyRide in Boise, Idaho and formerly served as Director of Program Administration and Chief Operating Officer for Knoxville Area Transit.  He earned a master’s degree in public administration and a doctorate in political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and also holds a bachelor’s in political science and history from Western Carolina University. And he’s still wondering when jet packs will start showing up in transit.