Candice Gibson is an Engineer working with the Virginia Department of Transportation's Office of Strategic Innovation. She is the Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program's (RM3P) Deputy Program Manager and the AI-Based Decision Support System (AI-DSS) Project Manager. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. She has over 18 years of experience in Operations, Signal and Freeway Engineering, Innovation, and Project Management.

Chris Arabia has more than 30 years of experience in transportation demand management at the city, county, regional, and state levels. Chris has been with the Virginia Department of Rail and Public transportation for the past 18 years. His work focuses on getting more people to use transit, carpool, vanpool, and bike instead of driving. This work has included oversight of statewide TDM/commuter assistance grant programs, and planning, operations, marketing, evaluation, and implementation of technologies for multimodal ridematching, trip planning, rewards, and guaranteed ride home programs.

Joel L. Ticatch serves as Vice President of Consulting within the ITS and Solutions Consulting Group at Kapsch TraffiCom USA. He is a skilled transportation strategist, practitioner, analyst, and communicator. He has managed innovative transportation system management and operations (TSMO) projects in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and for the I-95 Corridor Coalition. Among current assignments, Joel leads the Program Management Oversight Consultant Team for the Virginia Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program (RM3P). He is a nationally recognized expert in operations planning, intelligent transportation systems, transportation safety, multi-modalism, and commercial vehicle operations. He has conducted a host of field research studies, data analyses, and technology deployments. Key clients have included the Federal Highway Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Transit Administration, numerous state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, airport authorities, and transit agencies. Mr. Ticatch is the former Vice President of The Scientex Corporation and J.A. Reyes Associates, Inc. He previously chaired the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Truck and Bus Safety and served on the Executive Board of TRB's Safety and Users Group.

Aafiya Shah is an ITS Solution Consulting Engineer at Kapsch TrafficCom, USA. Trained as a civil engineer, she specializes in the field of transportation, providing engineering and planning support in TSMO and ITS. With nearly 7 years of experience, she's worked on a range of important projects and furnished strategic direction to state and federal agencies through collaborative management. In her current role, she focuses on the application of state-of-the-art and emerging ITS technologies, such as multi-modal ICM, traffic management systems, connected vehicles, and others. Over the last few years, she has worked on a high-visibility VDOT project, referred to as the Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program (RM3P) Initiative, where she is managing and coordinating a host of essential technical and project management activities. She has also supported the FDOT District 5 R-ICM program and served as a use-case analyst on USDOT's CARMA project.

Amy is an "outside-the-box” thinker, who has spent her career facilitating the use of technologies to improve transportation systems. Amy grew up in Taiwan and came to the US for her master's degree from the University of Maryland. She was schooled for multimodal mobility as a consultant in Taiwan and then a planner at Arlington County, Virginia, although her research focus at UMD and FHWA Turner Fairbank in the early 1990's was highway operations. Since joining VDOT, she has held several positions and involved nearly every aspect of ITS projects in Northern Virginia (NoVA) for more than 2 decades and supported many CAV pilot projects in NoVA. Currently, Amy is a Program Manager at VDOT's Office of Strategic Innovations (OSI) and manages the Regional Multi-Modal Mobility Program (RM3P). She strives to turn RM3P vision into reality.

30-year retired senior Naval Officer working for VDOT as the District Traffic Operations Director since 2020.

Di Wu has BS and MS in Civil Engineering, and Ph.D. in Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering. She worked for Mississippi DOT and AECOM as a Traffic Engineer and currently works for Iteris as a Sr. Engineer, Signal Optimization onsite NOVA PSTOC.

Jonathan brings almost 14 years of experience in developing improvements in operations through geometric design, traffic control, and other means. Jonathan served as the engineer of record for the first of its kind, predictive I-95 Variable Speed Limit ITS design plans that included 24 VSL sign sites and 6 CCTV camera sites with connections to resource sharing fiber-optics and cellular modems. Jonathan assists with ancillary structural analysis necessary to incorporate innovative technologies and ITS devices onto existing or proposed VDOT standard structures. Jonathan has supervised the preparation of cost estimates (including costs for Preliminary Engineering, Right of Way, Utility Relocation, and Construction phase costs) and calculation of Benefit-to-Cost (B/C) for Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding proposals.

Ebo is an ITS Specialist with NOVA District, and occasionally manages Special Projects. His 18-year professional career spans from traffic engineering, maintenance-construction, project design, program delivery, and traffic operations. He has been a VDOT liaison for interagency projects, which has given him a rare opportunity to work on visible regional and Megaprojects. He is originally from Ghana but migrated to the States for his undergraduate and master's degree in Civil Engineering. Prior to that, he acquired a first degree in Land Surveying and worked with a developer. Ebo has a keen interest in knowing how things work, how systems can be improved to make lives better, and passing on that knowledge/torch to others who desire to know.

Robert Cochrane is the Assistant District Traffic Engineer in VDOT's Richmond District, primarily responsible for traffic signal and ITS design. He has been with VDOT for more than 10 years, and prior to joining VDOT, he worked for a small consultant designing fiber routes for telecommunications companies. Robert has been a part of establishing both the statewide and Richmond District communications master plans, and has played a key role in a number of ITS projects in Richmond District. When he is not working, Robert enjoys being active in his church and spending time with his wife and two young boys.

Dan grew up in Chesapeake and started his career in Operations as a TOC Operator in at the Hampton Roads TOC. Working his way up and learning from some incredible leaders, he is now the lead SME and TOC Program Coordinator for VDOT's Traffic Operations Division. Professionally and personally, Dan is always eager to explore creative approaches to challenges. When he's not working or spending time with his wife and daughters, he enjoys motorcycling and photography.

Katie Felton is a Senior Traffic Engineer at the Virginia Department of Transportation. She began her career in VDOT's Engineering Scholar program while she was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech. While getting a master's degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Virginia, Katie worked at VTRC on the evaluation of the I-77 Active Traffic and Safety Management System. She has been at VDOT full time since 2016, first in the Operations Division, then in the Traffic Engineering Division, and now in the combined Traffic Operations Division on the Data and Systems Analysis team. Katie's experience is primarily in performance measures and data analytics with an interest in visualizations. She would describe her role as using data to creatively problem solve and answer questions about current and historical traffic operations in Virginia. Katie lives in Midlothian with her husband and new baby daughter.

Cathy has been with VTRC, the Research Division of the Virginia Department of Transportation since 1993, becoming its Director in December of 2016. She has led VDOT's research program on connected and automated vehicles and works with VDOT staff and University partners to develop, test, and deploy equipment and applications within the Virginia Connected and Automated Corridors to advance VDOT's mission of delivering safe and efficient mobility. In December 2018, Cathy became the Director of Research and Innovation, picking up responsibility for leading the Office of Innovation within the Office of the Secretary of Transportation. In this capacity, she is encouraging the deployment of innovation and technology across the transportation modal agencies. Current focus areas include data and analytics, Automated Virginia, broadband deployment, and cybersecurity.

Mr. Jasper joined NVTA in April 2014. He is responsible for leading NVTA's transportation planning and programming functions, including TransAction, Northern Virginia's multimodal long-range transportation plan, NVTA's Six Year Program, the Regional Multimodal Mobility Program (RM3P), NVTA's Transportation Technology Strategic Plan (TTSP), and a preliminary deployment plan for a regional Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.

John has been with VDOT for more than 15 years. He began his service as a systems engineer and planned, designed, installed equipment and systems for the Richmond Transportation Operations Center. He then became the transportation technology manager, providing statewide leadership and guidance to the Information Technology Division staff supporting the Transportation Operations Centers in Virginia and provided technical program management support to the Operations Division. Prior to joining VDOT, John had a successful career in the telecommunications industry, with experience leading teams in the areas of network operations, operations management and program management. John is also a military veteran having served in the U.S. Army.

Matthew (Matt) currently serves as the Traffic Operations Director for VDOT's Staunton District, overseeing the Traffic Engineering, Traffic/ITS Maintenance and Traffic Management functions for 11 counties in northwest Virginia. He has been with VDOT for 22 years, serving in previous roles as Harrisonburg Area Land Use Engineer and Regional Traffic Engineer for Culpeper and Staunton Districts. Prior to VDOT, he served as Traffic Engineer for the City of Lynchburg, Transportation Planner for the Central Virginia Planning District Commission, and engineer trainee with WV Dept. of Highways. He earned a BS degree in Civil Engineering from Virginia Military Institute, has a total of 29 years of transportation experience and is a registered professional engineer in Virginia. Matt has a strong interest in highway safety and bringing innovation into the everyday business of VDOT, particularly traffic operations, where he initiated and led the implementation of VDOT's first use of ATSPM on US 29 in Albemarle Co. and remains involved in numerous pilot projects. He currently leads the Staunton District Innovation Team.

Dwayne Cook is the Transportation Systems Strategy Office Director with VDOT. In this role he is responsible for the strategic planning, investment and development of the Transportation Systems Management and Operations program to reduce congestion, improve safety, mobility, and efficiency of VDOT's transportation network. Dwayne has over 30 years of experience with planning, program development, project management, and transportation operations & technology with private, military and state government organizations.

Mark Cole is the State Traffic Operations Engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation. He leads VDOT's Traffic Operations Division, whose mission is to ensure the safe, efficient, and reliable movement of people and goods on Virginia's surface transportation system. For over twenty-five years, Mark has held several leadership positions with state and local transportation departments in Virginia and North Carolina with a focus on the planning, design, and construction of transportation projects and the safety and operations of the transportation system. Specific areas of professional interest and passion include traffic safety, urban and multimodal street design, and transportation program management. Mark holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Public Administration from Old Dominion University. He is a Professional Engineer in Virginia and North Carolina and is an ITE Fellow.

Mena Lockwood is an Assistant State Traffic Engineer at VDOT. She has over 25 years of experience working in the transportation industry in the areas of research, planning, traffic engineering, ITS project development and Operations. Currently, her areas of responsibility include the statewide traffic monitoring program, highway network performance measures, traffic system analysis and engineering studies. Most recent data related interests include the Map-21 System Performance Measurement calculation and target setting methodology development; serving as the Secretary for the TRB Traffic Monitoring committee, member of pooled fund study to estimate AADTs from non-traditional data collection methods and arterial bottlenecks and performance management. Mena received her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Master's Degree, also in Civil Engineering, from the University of Virginia. She is a registered professional engineer in Virginia.

Larry Laynburd is a 2016 civil engineering graduate from the University of Maryland and a transportation engineering professional at Kimley-Horn with eight years of experience. Larry specializes in ITS planning and design, and, professional drone operations linked to various types of engineering including transportation and development services. Larry is passionate about ITS and marrying it with his love for drone technology to further advance the field of transportation to benefit the public.

Dr. Cetin is a Professor at the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at ODU and the Batten Chair in Transportation Systems and serves as the Director of the Transportation Research Institute (TRI). He conducts research on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), applications of machine learning in ITS, connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), and modeling and simulation of traffic operations. Dr. Cetin has served as PI or CoPI on numerous projects since joining ODU including a recent NCHRP project on Implementing and Leveraging Machine Learning at State DOTs. Dr. Cetin published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. Dr. Cetin received his Ph.D. degree in Transportation Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2002.

Michael is an innovation professional with global transportation infrastructure, innovative finance, and technology expertise, most recently founding Xtelligent, a U.S. Department of Energy backed Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) venture, as its Cofounder and CEO. Previously, Michael served as an Executive Advisor to the City of Los Angeles and led the City's development of its first automated vehicle and connected infrastructure strategy. Originally trained in urban planning, Michael started his career in infrastructure development for the United Nations in the Asia Pacific region where he built transportation and environmental infrastructure in post-conflict/post-disaster areas. Michael also has deep expertise in public, corporate, and PPP financing strategies. His financing experience originates from his time as an investment banker, most recently with Lazard, and he advised technology, infrastructure, and government organizations on strategy, capital raises, and M&A transactions across his finance career. Given Michael's experience across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, Michael is a multi-sector innovation expert. He is an expert in technology transfer and commercialization strategies backed by his first-hand experience as an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, and innovation financier. Michael holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Alan Toppen, P.E., has 24 years of experience serving clients in the areas of transportation technology and data analytics. He has degrees in Civil Engineering from Cornell and the University of Texas. Alan has been with Kimley-Horn for 19 years and serves on the Executive Board of ITS Virginia.

Zach Trogdon has over two decades of government service at the local and state level. Mr. Trogdon has worked for the last seven years in the public transit field. During his career, Mr. Trogdon has seen IT projects, when designed and implemented well, greatly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public organizations. While a transit agency head, he worked on projects involving real-time vehicle location and arrival information, mobile surveillance on transit vehicles, on-demand scheduling, and mobile electronic payment functionality.

Wayne Davis, Deputy Director of Motor Carrier Size and Weight Services at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. In this capacity, he oversees the NOMAD mobile screening unit, the Citation Tracking Program, the Virginia Escort Certification Program, and the Hauling Permit program. Wayne chairs the Southeastern Association of State Highway Officials (SASHTO), sits on the board of directors for ITS Virginia, and is a member of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) Motor Carrier Working Group. During his decades in the motor carrier field; Wayne has become known as a national expert on truck related issues and assisted with the crafting and implementation of motor carrier legislation. Wayne's diverse motor carrier background has enabled the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to continue its ongoing outreach to the trucking community.

Bobby McCurdy is ITS America's Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy, from which he helps to lead ITS America's public policy team in their transportation research, advocacy, and stakeholder convening efforts. He has extensive experience in supporting legislative research, in-depth analysis, and advocacy for transportation-related issues at the state and federal level with focus areas on V2X communications, digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and transportation safety.